Samsung NX 1 Media Launch (Kuala Lumpur)

I was invited with a writer to the media launch of the Samsung NX 1 at Nexus, Bangsar South earlier today. I arrived around 1045, the event started around 1140am. As usual, all the photos here are from the 5DIII.

How to do a camera launch:

First , ask one of your managers to welcome the press, and introduce the camera.

Then you launch the camera.

Then the product manager introduces the great features about the camera, without going into too much detail or else it will take forever.

You fly in your 'mascot' National Geographic photographer from halfway around the world to give a short presentation on the camera.

 Members of the team from Samsung.

 Group photo with the Samsung management and mascot photographers.

 Press conference in session.

 The camera in the flesh.

Always make sure that there are some pretty girls to pose with the camera.

These are my personal observations about the event / camera with just half an hour of trying it out.

• Talking about branding, the official photographers / videographers at the event were using CANON. If Samsung is so proud about the capabilities of the NX1, why not use your flagship camera to cover the event instead? (I do admit that it might slow down the workflow quite abit for the event photographers /videographers) but imagine the event photographer at a NIKON camera launch using a CANON camera.. It does turn some heads (for the wrong reasons).
• I'm not used to the user interface (UI) of the camera, so I feel its not as user friendly as CANIKON (though to be fair, the CANIKON UI isn't that great either).
• The NX1 is blazing fast when you're shooting high speed burst mode at 15FPS. But the small red light behind will blink for a few seconds as the camera transfers the large 28MP files to the memory card. I'm not sure if you have to wait for the buffer to clear before you can start shooting burst mode again but I'm sure the camera will lock down if you take a whole series of large files at one go.
• Because Samsung crammed in 28MP into an APS-C sized sensor, I'm not convinced about the low light performance of this camera despite Samsung's claims of a superior camera sensor. ISO1600 looked a tad grainy to me when I previewed the photo on the LCD.
• Autofocus can be a bit fidgety, especially in low light. I was using the 50-150mm/2.8 and it does struggle to focus a bit. Of course, don't expect this baby to supercede your 1DX or D4s anytime soon yeah.
• This camera is substantially built; it isn't light and small. It's a mirrorless camera trying to be an SLR
• This baby ain't cheap. Promo price starts from RM4699 body only. The 'pro' kit is RM8699 and it includes a grip, the 16-50/2-2.8 and a flash. By comparison if you add RM1k, you can get Nikon's smallest full frame DSLR - the Nikon D750 which is just a little larger than the NX1.
• The camera syncs well with Samsung products - you can directly bluetooth or wifi your photos from the camera to your Samsung phone with ease.

If you're a professional / semi professional photographer with some cash to burn or if you desire a lighter camera, this might be the camera for you. But to 'cari makan', perhaps the big two brands are easier to justify lah.

Over and out.