Samsung team photo #1

So here is the NX team for now, and presumably for some time to come.  The non-OIS 20-50 and 30/2 and the 50-200 OIS cover plenty of range and the 30mm can 'do' low light.  This photo includes the K-to-NX and SMC 55mm f/1.8 lens, and a few other Pentax primes could have been included in the shot; I decided to add just one for general scale.  That 30mm f/2 is small.. but really so is the 20-50.  The 50-200 is similar in size to the Pentax DA and I believe it's a bit heavier, thanks to OIS I suppose.  Note that the Samsung lenses are all made for APS-c sensors, and the Pentax primes can do fine with 24x36 film.

NX300 in silver/brown, 50-200 III OIS , 20-50 II and 30mm f/2 - plus NX>K adapter and 55mm f/1.8 Pentax lens.

Recent Samsung cameras do not come with external chargers - not even the NX1!  People are giving Samsung some well-deserved grief for this decision, since charging this way means the camera cannot be used for several hours.  Anyone wiling to spend $1500 on an NX-1 body will likely have a second battery charging or in their pocket, so refusing to include a $10 accessory seems very stingy or insensitive.  No matter, the charger and 2nd battery cost me about $15 elsewhere - so Samsung did not get any extra cash from me for their negligence.

I must say that the NX300 body-only deal I received online feels quite similar.  That company implies with this sale that it only gets bodies detached from the Samsung peripherals - yet it sells the flash for $60 separately.  They could get $120 for the Lightroom CD + license easily enough, another $20 for the battery... suddenly the $500 kit sold elsewhere yields them as much or more parted out.  Curious.  Samsung told me the NX300 only comes from them with LR4 disc battery and flash so I needed to speak with AsTech, who would rather refund my cash than supply me with any 'missing' parts.  I really do just want the body, since I got such a fine deal on the 20-50mm ultra-compact kit lens - but it's unsettling to get such a reduced kit which the manufacturer says nobody should have.

Really though I have most everything I need (though LR4 would be very nice) and I cannot afford to pick up those missing parts right now; perhaps Samsung will be asking around and make things complicated for dealers that are not doing what's expected of them.  I suppose this is a grey-market body as well - but it does the job nicely.  So while it feels wrong it works better for me with a tight budget to buy a little at a time; maybe I'll even pay for the full LR4 license that I did not receive... though it won't be soon.

If I'm not entirely happy, I am quite satisfied - and for now, that will do.

may I, can I - will I Stop?

As vaguely noted in the previous post, a new-to-me SMC 55mm f/1.8 lens is coming my way.  It incubated for several months as I dared to look at 'the K club' posts at pentaxforums, where images from this lens looked mighty good and owners posted a 9.2/10 rating.

pentaxforums.com image

My reasoning is weak: a lens sitting between 30 and 85 should be closer to 55mm than 50.. and oh ys, the SMC-A 50mm f/2 gets poor reviews while the K55 is among the best!  And this was a mere $35 shipped, unreasonably good for this lens.   And how exciting I've just learned a new excu-er reason: 52mm filters, of which I have many more than mere 49s!

Have I not rationalized well? 

All right already, buy the silly thing.  But promise you will stop now!  You say it to yourself, you say it to the dedicated reader of this blog and to any who arrive here by mistake.  Say less, act more - and act in line with what you say.  Please?

In more relaxing news, the Tamron 90mm has sold and all sale threads are closed. The M85 is free of competition from the 1:2 macro.  At some point I shall re-post the KatzEye screen and the 28mm lens whose place is now filled by the nx30/2, so a few more funds may trickle in before the books are closed on the Great Purge of November 2014 :-)

one foot in two systems

I am now in the curious position of owning equal shares in two good camera systems: Pentax and Samsung.  As the NX setup can use adapted Pentax lenses I have kept my best ones  - SMC 17 f/4 fisheye, a new-to-me SMC 55/1.8 and the M-series 85/2 and 135/3.5 primes.  The M series especially was designed to be compact, so on a mirrorless camera they are excellent for both optical and practical reasons.  I have two NX zooms and cannot imaging needing more: though the 16-50 with OIS and power zoom has a few possible advantages over the 20-50 I now have, price will not be one of them!

I have no Pentax body now, and I'm ok with that.  the K-3 tempts, the K-01 and K200d beckon from happy earlier days, but too much fresh tech is about to emerge.  Pentax now knows how to make a WR tilt screen (645z) and Sony makes on-sensor AF and better video possible. These items are here now on the NX300 but I expect Pentax engineers to do surprising things with the new technology.  However they may not make the most of video updates, as they have stated they will focus most of their attention on the still image; I applaud them for it, yet I wonder if they will allow too many simple video features to be found elsewhere.  The NX300's full-time autofocus and decent video results are not easily overlooked.

On the other -foot, Samsung is doing weather sealing now along with their ultra-hi-tech NX1.  The Samsung sensors are now very good in areas they struggled with before, and they too could make more surprises visible soon.  They even have nice pancake primes, in focal lengths that Pentax has not worked hard to keep in place (e.g. 24-30mm).  So the only hard part for me will be deciding which system to buy in a year or two, when Pentax and Samsung are showing others the perils of resting on laurels or proceeding cautiously!

Don't go there.

Wow: competition for camera gear is scarce right now.  I picked up both 30 and 45mm Samsung primes, and no one even offered a competing bid on the 30mm f2 pancake!   Bids on Pentax gear generally come high and fast* until the auction is closed, so this one-bid deal was unexpected.  Is it lack of Samsung dealing, or perhaps our nearness to the holiday hard-sell weekend holding back buyers? *

Quick tests of the NX 45mm show it to be a very nice lens - yet it needs to go back.  For one thing I'm seeing the same old pattern on a new platform, grabbing items without enough thought.  For another, my wife needs medical tests that cannot be paid for in camera gear - so it has to stop.  I tested the SMC 50/2 on a PK adapter on the same scenes and re-learned that it is also a very nice lens, and one that cost about 1/5 the price of the NX45 (even including the adapter!).

So the list looks like this today:
(K for Pentax, NX for Samsung)

• K17 fisheye, NX30, K50/85/135 primes
•  NX 20-50 and 50-200/OIS zooms
• 100-300 K zoom 
• plus a few other K lenses: Hanimar 400mm, JCPenney 80-200, possibly a K28-70 f/2.8-4

And that will be all for the nx system for the year 2014 and hopefully beyond.


*On the Pentax side things also went quiet.  I received one low offer for the smcM85 f/2, and after some thought I have now removed it from the listing.   Selling the 85mm should have brought me more money than the Tamron 90/2.5 macro and hence more satisfaction that I was breaking old habits - but selling it for a large loss proves nothing. Owning the 30 50 and 85 (all f/2) makes sense for both speed and compactness; even with K-NX adapter the latter two are pretty small and quite bright, and focus peaking helps them to do their best work.

making the most of it

A few more K-mount lenses have left the building, so I bought some cheap treats for the NX300.  An M42:nx adapter will arrive soon for the 80-200mm f/3.5, and a leather wrist strap will look good with the auburn faux leather of the camera body.  The OIS 50-200 f/4-5.6 will get more use than the m42 tele I expect.. that is no cheap treat but the stabilized lens is worth owning as winter's gloom envelops the region.  As to additional updates time will tell; hopefully an NX pancake prime or two will come along soon.

Tests have impressed with AF video, and the touchscreen focus-point shift does well.  That feature reminds me of the GF1 micro-43 I once owned, but this sensor is both larger and more fully featured.  So far so good.  I recognize this camera will not compete with a K-3 for features, but for reasons that seem good to me this is quite satisfactory.

sweeping changes!

While selling a few good Pentax lenses to 'trim the fat' as it were, I encountered more than one post in the 'Wanted' section. These were for items I planned to keep, but sale items were not moving so why not capitalize on the available interest? So the DA18-55 wr and DAL55-300mm lenses, the two great kit staples, are now gone. Immediately after that, interest bloomed on the other lenses I had expected to go, and the K-01 swap did not happen as the trade options diminished.  Now I have NO Pentax body, several very nice K-primes, and a Samsung NX300 with K-adapter arriving momentarily - and the sale continues.   Wow.   

So where are we now?

• primes: 17/4, 50/2, 85/2, 90/2.5 1:2*, 135/3.5 
• zooms: NX 20-50 II, 100-300 
• future prime: NX 30/2 pancake 
• future zoom: NX 50-200 III OIS
• primes for sale: 28/2, *85 or 90 above 
• zooms for sale: 21-35, 28-90 1:2 

reading fine print + more comparisons

Well, now I know why the NX300 was such a great price: it's missing box flash and battery.  And registration papers, and manual.. and Lightroom 4 come to think of it!  That was pretty much  stated on the listing but I failed to do my due diligence.  In this case I'm OK as a battery (my 'spare') arrives tomorrow and I can contemplate the flash options for a bit.  I've ordered a spare spare battery now.  I will contact them about how to register and get a copy of LR4 software, and on to Samsung after that.

Re. comparisons - I've boxed up the Pentax K-5 IIs so only the Q can take photos, making it difficult to compare the NX300 to another camera.  On the other hand it's smaller than my 5"-screen cell phone in two of three dimensions, so that's saying something.  The Q is definitely smaller in every way, but given its 1/2.5" sensor the comparison (0.4" against a 1.15" using that math) gets a bit silly.  Silly data is still data though, so there it is.



Well OK, it's pretty bad but the phone in fact can take an image of the two cameras together.  I warned you!

comparisons

Here are two lenses with curious specifications: a 20-50mm and a 20-40.  One is a lot smaller, one is rather faster at f/2.8-4.  Both are optimized for APSc sensors,  both are computer-optimized to do their best given the other constraints noted above.  Both do the job rather better than others from their respective companies.  Neither is stabilized internally nor is geared to closeup work.  One cost me $60 used, the other $680 new but open-box.  Interesting!

Yes, the tiny slow one is Samsung's 20-50mm f/3.5-5.6 II.  It has no OIS because it's designed to be small.  It does have the iFunction button on the side, press it and turn the front dial to control settings like white balance, shutter or aperture or ISO, and such.  The Limited from Pentax is solid, weather sealed and built to their Limited standards so metal and smooth focus are pretty much forced upon it.  It also has a DC motor inside for silent focus.  Both lenses appear to test out quite well and in online tests I've seen both leave their 18-55mm siblings far behind.

Note that the Samsung unlocks to become similar in length to the Pentax Limited zoom on the right, but this is what you carry with you between shots - so it matters.

I do not have the NX300 yet so no test images from the 20-50 for a few more days.  And by the way, camerasize.com shows us the camera-body difference as well.  Same sensor size, and similar sensor quality as measured at DxO labs. The Pentax (Sony sensor) outpoints the Samsung by a bit, but not by much - and the latter adds 20% more pixels to the equation.

http://camerasize.com/compare/#373,394

No doubt the Pentax has more external controls and it's a familiar feel to me.  It has two control dials and numerous external buttons & switches that I would miss.  It has a viewfinder, and while I have managed my Q and a K-01 without major problems I would miss it.  The NX300 has a tilt screen and I have missed that for some time!  Samsung also has WiFi , video-autofocus and the ability to adapt most older Pentax lenses to work manually.  And a larger screen.  Nice.

So how do they compare in my budget?  Glad you asked.  One is a lot smaller, one is 'full-featured'.  Both are optimized for APSc sensors, and scores are similar.  Both are computer-optimized to do their best given other constraints, and both do the job rather better than others from their respective companies.  One is stabilized internally, the other uses stabilized lenses.  One gets 800+ shots per battery charge, the other closer to 400; not surprisingly the factory-original batteries differ in retail price by a similar amount.  Curious though - K.Tuck reports that he had Pentax-like battery life when he tried the NX300...

One cost $650 used, the other $250 used/open box. So camera plus lens = $1330 or $310. 

Interesting, again.