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Thomas Hawk Digital Connection

The Koreans are coming! Correction: they’re already here!

Samsung had already gained a market presence with compact digicams, then surprised everyone when it delivered the interchangeable lens DSLR-style NX10 about 18 months ago.

Samsung NX11 Features

The NX11 continues the story: an APS-sized CMOS sensor, viewed with a 7.6cm Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode (AMOLED) LCD as well as an electronic turret viewfinder. There’s no mirror in the system, so no optical viewing path.

The review camera was fitted with the f3.5/18-55m lens, the whole package fitted into a mid-sized body, weighing less than 600 grams, replete with battery and card.

In the hand it’s a delightful package, with enough external controls to manage most shooting tasks; I should also note that all controls are clearly labelled, unlike some other cameras seen recently.

This is backed up by an extensive and easy to follow finder menu.

The CMOS snares 14.6 megapixels, with a maximum image size of 4592×3056 pixels, or 39x26cm as a print.

Movies are let down, with a maximum image size of 1280×720 pixels but, as I have said elsewhere, this is an OK size for those who venture no further into video release than a presence on YouTube.

One feature that continues on from the NX10 is the i-Function. This lets you toggle between shutter speed, aperture, EV, WB and ISO quickly and easily by depressing the i-Function button and twirling a ring on the lens. There’s only one trap with this: you can easily and inadvertently dial in an unwanted exposure compensation without realising it. But the i-Function feature is still worth getting to know.

The mode dial includes the usual PASM settings plus movie capture, sound picture (for audio notes), 13 scene modes and a panorama mode which fires off a series of sections and stitches them in-camera.

Image capture can be in RAW, JPEG or RAW+JPEG. The RAW files are written to memory in Samsung’s proprietary SRW format; there’s a software converter (Win/Mac) that handles the switch to Photoshop-friendly Photoshop RAW … but one wonders why companies like Samsung (Nikon is another) need to add the clutter. Continuous shooting can be made in JPEG or RAW at a rate of 3fps.

One matter: as the camera uses a unique lens mount, you cannot grab a barrel full of lenses from a range of manufacturers, unlike the Four Thirds cameras. So far, apart from the f3.5/18-55m kit lens (in stabilised and non-stabilised versions), there are f2.8/20mm and f2/30mm pancake lenses plus an f3.5/20-50mm zoom. Moving up, there are f4/50-200mm and f3.5/18-200mm zooms and a 60mm macro. Probably enough for most people.

There will be five new lenses available later in the year, including a 16mm F2.4 ultra wide pancake, 60mm F2.8 OIS macro, 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 OIS Movie Pro, 16-80mm F3.5-4.5 OIS Movie Pro and an 85mm F1.4 Premium Portrait lens.

An adaptor (ED-MA9NXK) enables the use of K-mount lenses on the NX cameras.

Samsung NX11 ISO Settings

The camera handles noise and resolution well all the way up ISO 3200.

Startup

It took only a second for the first shot to be fired after power up; follow-on shots then came in at a second a pop.

Verdict on the Samsung NX11

Quality: excellent on all counts.
Why you would buy it: compact, mid weight; attractive price.
Why you wouldn’t: no vari-angle screen.

Many will appreciate the PDF of instruction manual: it has clear text and large pictures to illustrate not only the camera but some basic photographic principles as well … like the relationship between lens aperture and shutter speed, the role of ISO settings and others.

But… a minor criticism: the manual’s text is littered with spelling errors. Like “recharable”, “acces”, “fuorescent”, minumum” etc. There is even at least one in the camera’s menu itself. Slap on the back of the hand, Samsung!

Available in black or silver.

Samsung NX11 Specifications

Image Sensor: 14.6 million effective pixels.
Metering: Multi pattern, centre-weighted, spot.
Sensor Size (APS-C): 23.4×15.6mm CMOS.
Lens Mount: Samsung NX.
35 SLR Lens Factor: 1:5x.
Shutter Speed: 30 to 1/4000 second.
Memory: SD/SDHC cards.
Image Sizes (pixels): 4592×3056 to 1280×1280. Movies: 1280×720, 640×480, 320×240 at 30fps.
Viewfinder: 5mm EVF/FLC (921,000 pixels).
LCD Screen: 7.6cm LCD (614,000 pixels).
File Formats: JPEG, RAW, JPEG+RAW, MPEG4.
ISO Sensitivity: Auto, 100 to 3200.
Interface: USB 2.0, AV, HDMI, DC.
Power: Rechargeable lithium ion battery, DC input.
Dimensions: 123x87x39.8 WHDmm.
Weight: 499 g (inc battery).

Post from: Digital Photography School’s Photography Tips. Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips, Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras.

Samsung NX11 REVIEW

Digital Photography School

I’ve mentioned before that I’m often inspired by this blog and yesterday’s post was a TTV photo, which inspired me to tell you, dear Photodoto readers, how to create TTV photos. Luckily for you it’s very simple, in principle.

TTV stands for “Through the Viewfinder” and to create one of these photos you need two cameras. Basically you set up your digital camera to shoot through the viewfinder of another camera. It sounds simple but requires quite a bit of patience to get it set up correctly. The best advice is to give it a try and practice until you get the hang of it. Also, try placing something dark coloured around the gap between the two lenses to keep out extra light.

Oh, and check out the Through the Viewfinder group on Flickr for some more TTV inspiration.

Photo credit:

Photodoto

This guest post was written by Sherry Osborne. Sherry is unable to leave home without at least one camera hanging off her shoulder. She posts photography tips geared to beginners several times a week at photoblog.net. Contact me if you are interested in guest writing for Photodoto. -John

I don’t know if this has ever happened to you but one of the worst feelings in the world (photography-wise at least!) is discovering that your memory card has become corrupted and you’ve now lost all the photos you recently took. It happened to me on my old point and shoot card but I was really lucky in that there were only about five or six photos on the card and they weren’t particularly important to me.

It can, however, be a disaster to lose your photos before you can remove them from the card. While you can’t prevent all problems, here are some memory card tips to avoid as many issues as possible.

1. Enjoy sales on memory cards but avoid cheap. When you’re shopping for a card buy the big name brands when a store is having a good sale. No matter how tempting it is, don’t pick up a card with a name brand you’ve never heard of and say, “Huh, only five bucks! I’ll get this one.” Sometimes price and brand really do matter and while even the popular brands can occasionally produce a defective card, you’re less likely to find yourself asking where all your photos went if you don’t buy a cheap card.

2. Do not leave your card in a card reader, even if you don’t think it’s doing anything. This is one of the tips that is hardest for me to follow. I have a tendency to take an average of 100+ photos on any given outing so I’ll often put the card in my reader, let it start, and then I’ll wander off to do other things. Then I realize, hours later, that the card is still sitting there. It seems like no big deal but as long as something is in the reader the computer will keep interacting with it. Don’t use it if it doesn’t actually need to be used.

3. Format your card each time you finish removing photos. Even if you delete the photos from the card, some data is still embedded in the card. When you load it back in your camera, take a moment to go into your menu and format the card each time.

4. Avoid extremes. Cards don’t like a lot of intense cold or high humidity. Keep it away from a lot of dust, and magnets. Be careful with it. They may look all sturdy and compact but they’re very sensitive.

5. Don’t use your card as a storage unit. This is such a common mistake and it’s so easily avoided. My parents travelled out East for my sister’s wedding back in September and my father took hundreds of photos while out there. I visited my parents at Christmas time and was utterly appalled that my father had never dumped his photos onto his computer. It was over three months after the fact and he had simply left the pictures on his card, continuing to take more on a fairly regular basis. He’s extremely lucky that his card didn’t become corrupted because he would have lost hundreds of pictures of his youngest daughter getting married, not to mention all the travel photos he took during his week-long visit. Just because your card can hold hundreds or even thousands of photos doesn’t mean that you should. Dump them and back them up often.

6. Consider more than one card. If you can buy two it’s a good idea to do so because then you have a back up. Change out your cards partway through the day. If you lose photos on one card, at least you’ll still have some on the other.

7. Don’t remove your card from the reader while it’s accessing the photos, don’t remove it from your camera while it’s turned on, and don’t insert it when the camera is on. All of these things can potentially corrupt your card, causing you to lose some or all of your images.

Do you have any memory card tips that work for you? Share them in the comments!

Photodoto

Thomas Hawk Digital Connection

When shopping for new lenses it’s often hard to compare the differences between one lens and another online. Even in a store, the difference might not be noticeable unless you get a chance to take both lenses out and play with them.

DxOMark to the rescue! This site is run as a manufacturer independent test site which allows for the comparison on hundreds of lenses side by side with a wide range of parameters. What’s even better than being able to compare raw stats, perfect for tech geeks (an enduring term, mind you)? Being able to compare lenses on different camera models.  Let’s take a quick look through the site’s main features. (click to enlarge screenshots)

Besides the advertisements, the first thing to note on the site is the fairly easy layout. At first I was a bit confused (this is normal for me) but then learned to find the lenses I was looking for. You can either browse the 400+ lenses in the section below (slow) or simply search for the lenses you want. I’d suggest choosing the “Lenses Only” option in the Advanced section under Search. It’s important to note the search will show results with the given manufacturer name and focal length, whether it is a zoom or prime. Such as a search for “Canon 85mm” will bring up the primes as well as 18-85mm option, as it should.

Each lens notes the US price and has a Select button for adding it to the comparison.

Once lenses are selected, the main screen shifts to show the most vital of comparison stats, with the option to sort by what is important to you.

DxOMark offers up their overall score, as many sites will, for a quick yes or no decision. Beyond that, to the left are results for Resolution, Distortion, Vignetting, Transmission and Chromatic Aberration. Even further to the right (beyond the screen shot) are Price, Minimum f-stop, Maximum f-stop, Filter Size and other vital info for the tech geeks in the crowd. It is a full, easy to compare, snapshot of the the lenses you have in mind. Want to dig a little deeper? DxOMark allows that as well.

Click “Compare Measurements” and another screen, similar to the first, organizes the vitals again, but this time with the handy [?] you might have been wanting. The [?] offers a chance to get a quick pop-up describing what the tested parameter means, why it’s important and the meaning of the score. DxOMark has put a lot of effort into providing accurate data and test situations and it shows in their lengthy (sometimes dry) explanations.

All meters are arranged with “Poor” on the left and “Excellent” on the right, so the sliders are all relevant for those not wishing to dive into the numerical info. Beyond the first screen are tabs across the top, the most handy of which is the “Measurements” tab. There is truly a dizzying amount of data available in the next screens. I have limited this test to a request from a student looking to buy one of two prime lenses. Otherwise, with a zoom, the amount of comparisons greatly increases and is a delight for those wanting granular data. For instance, I selected Vignetting and got the below results:

The green and red scale again makes understanding simplified. At f/1.4 you can quickly see both lenses are not at their best, but improve as the f-stop number increases (as is expected). Just above the camera models are “Global map” “Profile” and “Field map” which provide more granular information to help compare at different f-stops and focal lengths (if the lens zooms).

Beyond the lens comparison tool, DxOMark allows for comparing lenses on various camera bodies so hopefully you can get an accurate respresentation of how the lens will work on your specific model. While not all models are available, the most popular ones show up in the drop down list for an individual lens (below).

It is important to note that lenses intended for cropped sensors (APS-C) will only show the appropriate cameras for their test, while lenses that work with full frame and APS-C will show more cameras.

Lastly, paging through the information on a zoom lens, like the popular Canon EF 16-35mm II, provides a wealth of color coded information for learning a lens’s prime use areas, such as this chart showing Vignetting at various focal length and aperture settings.

All in all, I found DxOMark.com a very useful site for data gathering and comparison for lenses. For those looking for camera sensor data (ISO performance between different manufacturers, etc.), it can drill down on those stats as well. While it does not contain every combination available, the wealth of information is a great help when trying to decide between different lens or camera choices. My main gripe about the site is the number and placement of ads. I understand all this information is coming free of charge and income needs to be gathered somehow to keep the site running, but the text ads detract a bit from the site. While handy for sharing, the Tweet and Share buttons only bring up the main page for the lens and not the individual data set I was viewing.

Little things, really, for a site with such an extensive, growing library of useful lens and camera selection data.

Post from: Digital Photography School’s Photography Tips. Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips, Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras.

Lens Comparison Website Aids In Lens Purchase Selection

Digital Photography School

I started Photodoto in 2006. In four years, we’ve published nearly 600 articles on a diverse range of topics for beginners to advanced photographers. I’m proud of the work. For myself, and on behalf of all of Photodoto’s contributing writers: thank you for reading and contributing.

When I started Photodoto, my mission was to try to make photography more accessible to everyone. I believe strongly that anyone can be a good photographer and that photography is not as mysterious or difficult as many people think. I hope that I’ve achieved that goal, at least for some of you.

Unfortunately, over the past year, I haven’t had the time to dedicate to Photodoto that I think it or you deserves. I’ve got a lot on my plate. I’ve been forced to prioritize and Photodoto just didn’t make the cut.

Photodoto will not just disappear. There will be no new blog posts. But the content will live on in some form. I intend to reorganize and republish the most popular articles. And all existing links to content here will continue to work.

There are many great photography blogs out there. Here are three in particular that I think have a similar aim as Photodoto and that I think you will enjoy:

• Epic Edits
• Beyond Megapixels
• Digital Photography School

See you around. 🙂

-John
john@photodoto.com

Photodoto

I started Photodoto in 2006. In four years, we’ve published nearly 600 articles on a diverse range of topics for beginners to advanced photographers. I’m proud of the work. For myself, and on behalf of all of Photodoto’s contributing writers: thank you for reading and contributing.

When I started Photodoto, my mission was to try to make photography more accessible to everyone. I believe strongly that anyone can be a good photographer and that photography is not as mysterious or difficult as many people think. I hope that I’ve achieved that goal, at least for some of you.

Unfortunately, over the past year, I haven’t had the time to dedicate to Photodoto that I think it or you deserves. I’ve got a lot on my plate. I’ve been forced to prioritize and Photodoto just didn’t make the cut.

Photodoto will not just disappear. There will be no new blog posts. But the content will live on in some form. I intend to reorganize and republish the most popular articles. And all existing links to content here will continue to work.

There are many great photography blogs out there. Here are three in particular that I think have a similar aim as Photodoto and that I think you will enjoy:

• Epic Edits
• Beyond Megapixels
• Digital Photography School

See you around. 🙂

-John
john@photodoto.com

Photodoto

Thomas Hawk Digital Connection

I’m proud to say that I got on Google+ the very first day it was available for public beta (thank you again +Brian Rose). Since that day I’ve been an active user and have used it daily to publish my photography out to the the world. My Google+ workflow is pretty simple. I publish about 5 photos a day spread out over the course of the hours in a day that I’m awake. I’ve got a large archive of about 80,000 finished photos at this point so I’m posting what I feel is my stronger work there. Much of what I’m publishing on Google+ are first time photographs that I’ve never shared anywhere else. I don’t want to overwhelm people with my work, but 5 photos a day spread out over the course of a day feels about right to me. The reception has been amazing and I’m lucky to have quickly built an audience for my work.

In a little over a month I have over 38,000 people who have put me in their various circles — thank you. By contrast I have about 3,300 people who are my friends on Facebook. Despite the fact that I’ve been active on Facebook for almost 5 years, I have an audience over 10x bigger on Google+ than Facebook in a little over a month.

I believe that much of the reason why I and other photographers are having so much success on Google+ is because it is fundamentally a *better* platform than Facebook for photographs and in this blog post I’ll detail some of the key differences.

1. Google+’s photo thumbnails are MUCH bigger than the stingy microscopic photo thumbnails that Facebook gives you. I can’t overemphasize this point enough. Bigger is better when it comes to photography on the web. It boggles my mind why Facebook has insisted on holding on to their minuscule microscopic thumbnails as long as they have. They are tiny. You can’t see anything at all. Photos on Facebook are easily skipped and ignored. In contrast, Google+ gives us nice large thumbnails that invite you to interact. The photo thumbnails look sooooo better and as such they get much more attention. Super smart Google!

2. Google+ has the *best* lightbox on the web right now — by comparison Facebook’s looks cheap and dated. With Google+ when you see a bold new thumbnail by a photographer, you *want* to click through to see the large sized version — and when you do this you are rewarded by the best lightbox on the web. The photo is huge. It takes up just about the entire page except for some comments over on the right side. It’s loaded instantly — so fast. It never locks up or hangs like flickr.

Facebook by contrast, even with their revamped lightbox, only gives you a medium sized photo. The focus is not the image. Instead you see a bunch of gibberish in white under the image and even worse an advert.

3. With Google+ I can easily circle the photographers whose work I want to follow vs. Facebook’s clunky lists. Once I tried to play with Facebook’s lists to try to filter in some of my favorite photographers. It was a huge failure. I couldn’t figure it out. It was clunky. So I’m stuck with my main Facebook feed being full of non-photography related stuff. Sometimes I just want to see big bold photos instead of having to read about Aunt Edna’s latest recipe for avocado soufflé or 2nd cousin Gary’s passion for bashing the hell out of Sarah Palin 28 times a day, even after the election’s been over for 2 years now. With Google+ I can create great circles of people devoted to photography, with Facebook I can’t.

4. The Facebook/Flickr integration thing has been a huge disaster. When I first heard that you could import your Flickr photos into Facebook, I was sort of excited — but this has been one of the most poorly integrated features I’ve ever seen. Sometimes Facebook will import a thumbnail representing my Flickr photos *8* times in a row. Sometimes they won’t come in at all. When they do come in they use the worst photo for the thumbnail instead of the best (hint, last uploaded in a batch to Flickr, not first uploaded to Flickr in a batch).

And I’m not alone here: Just go to the Flickr Help forum and search “Facebook” and you’ll find post after post after post of people on Flickr complaining about how broken this process has been. Good God, there are over 1,700 posts in the Flickr Help Forum, almost all of them complaining about how broken the Facebook integration is. This has left a bad taste in my mouth re: photography on Facebook.

5. All the best photographers are showing up on Google+ and an exciting now community of photographers is blossoming. Photographers on Google+ are engaged. Every day people are sharing new lists of photographers and resharing content by their favorites. There are long discussions about techniques and methods. Photowalks are being set up. The photo community is alive and active on Google+ while it feels stale and non-existent on Facebook.

Photography is such an important part of any social network and Google+ has been optimized for photography and photographers right out of the gate. It feels central in how they’ve designed service. Google+ realizes how visual we all are and has built a far better platform for us to be visual with. Everybody loves photography right? It’s no surprise that photographers are doing so well on this exciting new platform.

If you’d like to follow my work on Google+ you can do that here.

If you haven’t signed up for Google+ yet and need an invitation you can get one from me here. (I’ve only got 129 left to hand out on this link).

You can read comments on this post over at Google+ here: https://plus.google.com/104987932455782713675/posts/8czBNGPWqEk

Thomas Hawk Digital Connection