Samsung NX mini

Lab Test and Comments

Edited by George Schaub

This lab test and the comments are by Betternet testing labs, via the TIPA (Technical Image Press Association--www.tipa.com/English) group, on which I serve as a member of the Technical Committee. I have edited the comments and test results and make them available as a service to the photo community. Other Betternet tests I have edited can be found in the Image Tech section on the Shutterbug home page (www.shutterbug.com) where I currently serve as Editor at Large.

The NX mini is Samsung's newest NX camera. The very small compact system uses a 1/1-inch sensor, which is the same size as the image sensor in Nikon 1 series cameras and Sony's RX100 models.

The new sensor format made a new lens mount system necessary. As of this writing only two lenses are available: the 9 mm f/3.5 lens with fixed focal length and a 9-27mm f/3.5-5.6. Due to the 1-inch sensor and its crop factor of 1:2.7, the 35mm lens equivalents are 24 and 24-73 mm. Samsung offers an optional adapter, which allows use of lenses from their NX system mounts. (Samsung MA4NXM). The adapter supports the AF and aperture system of the NX lenses and gives full compatibility with the new NX mini camera.

The camera offers a 3-inch swivel LCD on the back. The screen can be flipped upwards for “selfies.” The screen offers 460,000 RGB dots, which is below average for a modern compact system camera. The touchscreen of the NX mini is integrated into its operations and allows for setup and placement of the active AF point, for example. The camera offers a standard 4-way control field for image parameters like display mode, AF mode and more. The camera doesn't offer setup vial dials or control wheels, which is a bit unhandy. Even the manual focus setting has to be controlled by the menu buttons; the small “pancake” 9mm lens doesn't have a lens ring for focusing.

Just like all NX cameras, the new Samsung NX mini doesn't offer an integrated image stabilizer. It relies on the OIS systems in the NX lenses. However, the new fixed focal length lens, which was used for this test, doesn't offer this built-in optical image stabilizer, so when mounted the menu setting for “OIS (Anti-Shake)” in the LCD screen is deactivated.

The camera has an electronic shutter system, which allows for use of very fast shutter speed settings. Just like the Nikon 1 series, it allows users to shoot as fast as 1/16,000 sec.

The camera offers an integrated WLAN interface. The WLAN functionality is activated by pressing the “Direct Link” button on the top. A free app for Android smartphones or iOS systems is available. It allows for remote control, image data transfer, direct WLAN presentation on smart TVs and more.

Comments on Image Quality

Color: The Samsung NX mini showed a very good result in the color tests. The automatic white balance system causes only minor aberrations of the gray pattern in the center of the chart and most colors show only a minor shift from their given values. Blue and red nuances are intensified and is the main reason for the high average saturation result (113.6 percent.) Skin tones show a little shift in the direction of pink colors (a higher magenta rate), but are reproduced with clean gradients without banding effects.

Sharpness: The camera reproduced the ISO 12233 chart with 3244 of 3648 lines per picture height. The high-resolution result is a consequence of a very intense sharpness filtering. Tests indicate an extreme overshot result of more than 32 percent and a clipping warning (doubled contour on hard contrast lines.) The very hard and exaggerated contrast lines are noticeable in the standard test images. The effect appears with less intensity in real life images, but may be noticeable in fine details like hair structure in portraits.

Noise: The camera showed a very good performance in the noise tests. By a rising intensity of the anti-noise filtering it keeps the luminance noise factor on a very low level and nearly constant in ISO 160 to ISO 3200 settings. Color noise is low in images taken with ISO 160 to ISO 800, but appears in images taken with ISO 1600 and higher. In images taken with ISO 3200 to 12,800 the anti-noise filtering creates some color clouds/smear in the gray pattern of the test chart and drastically reduced detail reproduction.

The camera achieved a maximum of 11.1 f-stops (at ISO 400), which seems to be the native ISO speed sensitivity of the image sensor. The dynamic range results between ISO 160 and ISO 1600 vary between 9 to 10 f-stops.