Samsung NX300 - Nice Functions, Needs More Form

Introduction

As the successor to the NX200 and NX210, the NX300 represents the mid-range of Samsung’s mirrorless system cameras. In some ways, it’s even better than the flagship NX20, which was released in the middle of 2012.

The NX300, like the NX20, is built around a 20MP sensor, but the NX20 has a more advanced Hybrid AF (auto-focus) system, which combines both phase and contrast detection. The NX300 comes with a slightly larger OLED screen with more pixels which is touch-sensitive. The NX300 can shoot faster at a maximum of nine frames per second (fps) and 1080p resolutions at 50fps. While we had a chance to toy with it as early as January at the CES 2013 tech show, it was only made available recently on our sunny shores. So read on as we help you uncover more about this mirrorless system camera.

Design & Handling

Samsung is still obsessed with razor-sharp edges on the top plate of the camera, and the strap lugs get in the way of your shooting finger. If you’re an enthusiast who frequently shoots in manual, the single control dial is awkwardly positioned behind the shutter release. The NX300 doesn’t have a scroll wheel, so you’ll have to hold down the exposure compensation button to switch between aperture and shutter speed control.

But other than that, the NX300 offers a fair bit of control. The Fn (Function) button on the back jumps you into a one-stop quick menu with essential settings, and dedicated buttons for settings like ISO and AF modes can do the same. A Custom button (which is also the Trash button) can be set to one of five presets, but we would have preferred more.

The tilting AMOLED screen is touch-sensitive, and provides good viewing angles. Irritatingly, the on-screen touch Menu and Function buttons never go away, even when you change the info display options, so they’ll always block your view of the scene. A graphic which tells you what a mode does when you switch to it also never goes away, so you’ll always face a frustrating delay whenever you switch modes.

The NX300 has built-in Wi-Fi and has two ways to access it. A dedicated Direct Link button turns on AutoShare, which automatically sends pictures taken over to your mobile device via the Samsung Smart Camera app. It works, but the app will need to be always-on in iOS, the moment you get out of the bare-bones app the connection is lost.

A Wi-Fi mode has more features, like the ability to select images for transfer to and from your mobile device, using a smartphone as a remote shutter and using Auto Backup to send photos and videos over to a PC. On our iPhone 5, the Smart Camera app crashed repeatedly, failing to transfer saved images over to the phone. The remote shutter feature is stark; the camera won’t focus until you press the shutter release on the app (even when you half-press the shutter release on the camera). However, we saw the image transfer work on a Samsung Galaxy S4; in this case, it might be the failure of the iOS app and not the camera.

Image Performance

The NX300's image resolution clocks in at an average 2400LPH (horizontal and vertical) on our resolution chart. The colors in Standard photo style lack the oomph and vibrancy you'd find in, say, the Standard photo style from Canon's DSLR cameras, but you can always set the photo style to Vivid for stronger hues.

ISO performance compares well against an old favorite, the Olympus OM-D E-M5 which has a smaller sensor. The NX300 employs some heavy noise suppression, which results in smoother images at high ISO with less detail but also less noise. Images look clean up to ISO 1600, and at ISO 3200 you can start to see some detail loss (if you squint) due to the in-camera noise suppression but also a nice lack of noise. At ISO 6400 there is a jump in noticeable noise but the camera handles it well; the noise is mostly luminance (black and white) with little if any chroma (color noise).

Auto-focus is speedy and responsive, and Samsung deserves credit for it. However, it still tends to struggle in low-light, which is puzzling because the NX300 comes with an AF assist lamp. On another note, the NX300 comes with focus peaking which helps when you want to focus manually.

Sample Test Shots

These are sample photographs shot with the Samsung NX300. The photos have not been post-processed, are saved in AdobeRGB, and are copyright to SPH Magazines. They are provided for your reference only and we ask that you do not reproduce them elsewhere. Click for full-resolution images.

Conclusion

The Samsung NX series has come a long way since the NX10 was first released in 2010. Since the NX11, auto-focus speed and accuracy has been vastly improved, and the NX300's image sensor boosts ISO performance up to a respectable degree. The camera also comes with built-in Wi-Fi, which makes it easy to share and transfer images over, important in this day and age when no photo seems to have been really taken until it's up on Facebook.

However, your mileage might vary with how easy it is to use the built-in Wi-Fi, as the app for iOS appears to be underdeveloped compared to the app for Android. And while the internals of the NX300 perform quite well, the externals are a mix of good and bad. The NX300 has some good handling ideas; the dedicated buttons on the back for controls like AF and ISO, and the Fn button which takes you into a Quick menu with the most important settings. The i-Fn button on the lens also does the same, although we have to admit we don't use it much - it takes some ingraining of muscle memory to tell yourself that a lens comes with a function button.

But the control dial, which is probably the second-most important control for a mid-range enthusiast camera next to the shutter release, is placed in an awkward position that's hard to reach. The edges of the camera are sharper than most, and for no good discernible reason other than someone somewhere thought it'd be a cool idea. These oddities hold the NX300 back from getting a better overall rating.

Another reason why the NX300 doesn't get a higher rating is one you might not care about - the ecology of lenses you can play with. With a total of 12 lenses, Samsung has one more than Sony's total number of NEX lenses, and more than Nikon's 1 system (nine lenses), Fujifilm's XF system (seven lenses), or Canon's M system (two lenses).

All of which still pales in comparison to Micro Four Thirds (MFT), which has a staggering total of 40 lenses (not counting the three discontinued lenses). MFT also has competitive cameras from both Panasonic and Olympus, like the Lumix GX1, GF6, the Pen E-PL5 and E-P5. Granted, the MFT cameras have smaller sensors than the APS-C sized sensor found in the NX300. Still, it's something to think about.

On the subject of lenses, the Samsung NX300 is one of the few mirrorless cameras that is 3D photography-ready through the optional NX 45mm F1.8 2D/3D lens - the world's first one-lens 3D system capable of capturing both still images and full HD movies in 2D or 3D. This will set you back an additional S$649 just for the lens, although we're not quite sure how many people will buy into the 3D photography idea when you need glasses to enjoy them and a 3D TV. As such, this extra functionality will remain a niche. For those interested, you can find out more about it in our earlier hands-on article.

Last but not least, the Samsung NX300 commands a price of S$999, which is priced in the same range as other more competitive cameras mentioned above. Fortunately, Samsung cushions this somewhat by bundling the camera with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 (valued at S$178). For novice photographers stepping up, the software bundle will come in handy, but not so for more regular photographers who are quite likely to have a decent image editing application at hand.

Note: This review was completed before the release of the latest firmware update for the NX300, which may have addressed some of the handling issues we describe.

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