Taking a Samsung NX Mini out for a hike in 2022...

I got a Samsung NX Mini from a thrift store, with a 9mm lens. It's a 1" type BSI CMOS 20.5MP sensor, released 8 years ago.

Pretty amazing little camera. No VF and one dial, but great menus on the touchscreen. Kind of hard to see with it out on a hike in the sun, but otherwise fine. Even the PASM modes are only on the touch screen. Apparently it didn't do too well, but I'm  having considerable fun with it.

I was sort of surprised by its ability to do ok with bright and dark and noise, for that year, and that sized sensor.

Here's a raw shooting in shade vs a bright sky, and then just the "auto" settings in Lr with  denoising at about 50. I thought it did OK for an eight year old camera.

Raw with just a crop and daylight WB

Now 50 denoise and "auto" applied.

I missed focus on occasion, and was shooting P mode, and I didn't realize for a bit that it had fill-in flash on. The built in flash is tiny; it came with an external so I thought the on board flash was just a trim piece. Anyway, got this shot, at like F13, so some crazy deep focus. The GG Bridge is miles and miles away; I ran it through Topaz Sharpen AI just for fun and got this result:

Blown focus and diffraction, with a recovery attempt via  Topaz Sharpen.

It focuses pretty close with the 9mm (27ish equiv I think), and has a screen that flips up, so sort of fun for close shots.

Oak leaf

Pretty decent detail for a little camera

And the lens had some interesting flares, although I think this spider web may have contributed:

Too bad Samsung got out of the biz. This thing definitely had some promise. Even long discontinued their stuff is still getting good prices used. And my copy has a battery that works great, and has some stuff that is still better than current cameras. For example, it has THREE different methods to update firmware (Samsung still has it online): on the microSD, via a desktop application, or direct download into the camera, since you can connect it to the internet.

So I think I'll keep it. Pocketable, so easy to have on hand, and I still like using it vs my phone.