Returning to the fold, NX300 + Lenses

After going with E-Pens, Canons, Sigmas, an X100 and a long run with an A57, I'm coming 'home' to Samsung (former NX100 and 200 owner).

I've ordered a brown 18-55 OIS III (loved the 20-50 sharpness but want IS now that I've had it on some of my other rigs, and the III supposedly comes close). Now, which lens(es)? Trying to keep the budget as tight as possible. Wanted black, but the best deals were on the brown and white kits.

I do a lot of macro, low light, street and landscape with a smattering of birds and indoors. For long zoom I'm getting an m42 adapter to run my old but pretty sharp Accura 300mm. I think I'm looking at the 30mm f2 and possibly the 10mm, but not sure. I have an m42 Super Takumar... For macro I can cheat it a bit with diopters, but I'll miss the nice vintage Minolta 50mm macro on my A57.

Also ordered a brown anodized thumb grip and am buying an optic glass screen protector and half case. Sadly, it looks like the case selection has shrunk some since my NX100/200. I don't see a HorusBennu option and only one other than the Gariz seems to have battery access.

Welcome back. I'm curious what brought you back to Samsung?

pixelpushing wrote:

After going with E-Pens, Canons, Sigmas, an X100 and a long run with an A57, I'm coming 'home' to Samsung (former NX100 and 200 owner).

I've ordered a brown 18-55 OIS III (loved the 20-50 sharpness but want IS now that I've had it on some of my other rigs, and the III supposedly comes close). Now, which lens(es)? Trying to keep the budget as tight as possible. Wanted black, but the best deals were on the brown and white kits.

I do a lot of macro, low light, street and landscape with a smattering of birds and indoors. For long zoom I'm getting an m42 adapter to run my old but pretty sharp Accura 300mm. I think I'm looking at the 30mm f2 and possibly the 10mm, but not sure. I have an m42 Super Takumar... For macro I can cheat it a bit with diopters, but I'll miss the nice vintage Minolta 50mm macro on my A57.

Well, the 30/2 is a no-brainer, it gives so much for the money and is very compact. Excellent lens for street, landscape, low light and portraits. The 10mm fish is superb as fisheye lenses go and I can only recommend it, if you have use for a fisheye. The compactness of the 10/3.5 is nothing short of amazing, basically a fisheye pancake and very good optical quality. There's some good deals on the fish if you just look around. As far as close-up shots go, the 18-55 can focus amazingly close with manual focus - significantly closer than with AF. I'm quite satisfied by the 18-55's close-up abilities.

here's a few from the 18-55:

preserved fish at around minimum manual focus distance

small, preserved fish at around minimum manual focus distance

here's a few dozen shots from the 18-55 and 30/2: http://www.pbase.com/arn/samsung_nx20

here's a few at 2560x1600 resolution: http://www.pbase.com/arn/samsung_nx20_wallpapers

exif is intact, so you can see which shot came from which lens.

and finally, 10/3.5 shots (roughly the first two rows, the rest are Sigma 10/2.8) http://www.pbase.com/arn/sigma_10mm_fish_samples

nster wrote:

I'd go with the 16-50 Power zoom over the 18-55, much more compact

Kit deal on ebay for a $459 Brown NX300 & OIS 18-55 III is too good to pass up. I can live without a compact kit if I get a pancake of some flavor.

For Macro if you can find a 60mm for 300$ ish that would be good, can double as portrait when you need it. The 30mm f/2 is suberb and a great lens to have so that the NX300 stays compact for street and lower light (find a good beltloop case and it's really practical).

I'm running lean on funds (case, grip, screen protector, some lens adapters and other stuff), so I'm probably just going to stick with one additional Samsung NX lens and then go adapted vintage for most other stuff for now.

The 10mm fisheye is also on my radar as sometimes you just wish you had that range and I could see myself carrying the 10mm and 30mm in a compact case

The fisheye is even more interesting to me than the 30mm. Don't know about practicality, but it turns out cool shots and looks like correction absolves its output of distortion well.

After that if you need a zoom the 50-200mm should complete your set well if you have the money. You can sometimes find it in the 150$ range and I think it's a steal

I have a 300mm Accura. It's old, weird, not compact but with a Vivitar 2x slapped on it, I can get decent moon shots (this was with my 60D):

Bryan M wrote:

Welcome back. I'm curious what brought you back to Samsung?

Wide assortment of cheap vintage adapters. I do a lot thrift and flea market digging, have come up with hundreds of lenses over the years.

Nice ergonomic body design, very intuitive and fast exposure adjustment, at least my NX100 and 200 were. The only camera I've owned that was as easy to shoot with was my A57, and that of course is a heavier, larger camera. I still think the NX models are grossly underrated and underreported.

My one concern is the 5 RAW+JPEG buffer limit. That constantly annoyed me with my NX200 and the only reason I'm willing to try NX again is that there isn't the same total lockup with the 300 while writing, so it might not be so bad. We'll see.

Buffer depth is perhaps the biggest issue with nx300, but at least the operational performance is better than nx200.

The nx30 seems to have improved a little big, getting about on par with other similar priced cameras.

tecnoworld wrote:

Buffer depth is perhaps the biggest issue with nx300, but at least the operational performance is better than nx200.

The nx30 seems to have improved a little big, getting about on par with other similar priced cameras.

I wish they'd kept the all-metal black body of the NX200, too. Frankly, as nice as the NX300 is from a purely ergonomic standpoint (Samsung always gets good marks, there), the looks of the 2xx and 2xxx are better, IMO. I was sort of stuck with brown, as white seemed unwise/impractical and black would have cost almost $50 more, I believe.

The NX compact models certainly don't compare to the Fuji line. Now there's some lovely designs, pretty good layout, exquisite materials. But no tilt LCD, relatively low resolution and pricey - especially their lens lineup. Yikes!

Anyway, looking forward to taking it for a spin after not having NX for a couple of years. It's funny how your perspective changes after you've tried a variety of other models. When I got into the NX100 and 200 I'd only had a couple of Nikons and an Olympus.