Very impressive lens. Compact and sharp enough wide open. I'm not a pixel peeper, I don't shoot wall charts and examine them at 100%. In real world use it is a lot of fun to use. A really nice focal length for general use (45mm in FF/35mm equivalent). F2 allows for a good amount of light in. It produces very nice out of focus blur.
Samsung is impressive in their efforts with the NX system. They have a very nice lineup of lenses available, and they are producing more. The NX system will give you this and 2 other pancake lens options, all of them 2.8 or faster (a 20mm and a 16mm) Gives you good options to stay compact if you have an NX body.
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Pretty pictures, if just one minor curiosity.
I have a Samsung NX3000, and it is my first interchangeable lens camera, which I bought to take better everyday and travel photos. This is the first lens I purchased after the kit lens at the advice of friends who have mirrorless cameras.I've been very happy with the quality of pictures it takes, and while I'm still learning, I found the focus ring very responsive and easy for a beginner to get the hang of. I would say it's actually easier to go from using point-and-shoots to using the NX3000 with this lens than with the included kit zoom lens (20-50mm). The latter just had more unfamiliar parts, including a locking mechanism that takes some getting used to, where this lens was much easier to just put it on and just get out there and start shooting.The only reason this gets a 4 instead of a 5 is because one of the reasons I purchased the NX3000 was for the 180-degree articulating screen for "selfies". The NX3000 self-shot features include face detection, wink shutter, smile shutter, and "beauty shot". While I don't use this feature frequently, when I do use it, I find these features to be surprisingly less gimmicky than they sound. (Except "beauty shot" which basically is just face blurring??. . .)My experience has been that when the camera is in self-shot mode, i.e. the screen is flipped 180-degrees to face the subject, face detection is way more picky using this lens than either (a) using the camera with the kit zoom lens in self-shot mode, or (b) using this lens in normal shooting mode. If the lighting isn't just right, or the subject is not exactly the right distance away, the face detection won't kick in and then the other features it incorporates, i.e. wink shutter and smile shutter, won't work either.Either it's a a hardware/software issue, or a knowledge gap issue on my part, but it was perplexing to be wondering why it seemed easier to take a selfie with the kit zoom lens than with this.It's not a deal breaker by any means -- the pictures it takes are beautiful, including selfies. Just can't always rely on the software helping with the latter.
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I have a Samsung NX3000, and it is my first interchangeable lens camera, which I bought to take better everyday and travel photos. This is the first lens I purchased after the kit lens at the advice of friends who have mirrorless cameras.
I've been very happy with the quality of pictures it takes, and while I'm still learning, I found the focus ring very responsive and easy for a beginner to get the hang of. I would say it's actually easier to go from using point-and-shoots to using the NX3000 with this lens than with the included kit zoom lens (20-50mm). The latter just had more unfamiliar parts, including a locking mechanism that takes some getting used to, where this lens was much easier to just put it on and just get out there and start shooting.
The only reason this gets a 4 instead of a 5 is because one of the reasons I purchased the NX3000 was for the 180-degree articulating screen for "selfies". The NX3000 self-shot features include face detection, wink shutter, smile shutter, and "beauty shot". While I don't use this feature frequently, when I do use it, I find these features to be surprisingly less gimmicky than they sound. (Except "beauty shot" which basically is just face blurring??. . .)
My experience has been that when the camera is in self-shot mode, i.e. the screen is flipped 180-degrees to face the subject, face detection is way more picky using this lens than either (a) using the camera with the kit zoom lens in self-shot mode, or (b) using this lens in normal shooting mode. If the lighting isn't just right, or the subject is not exactly the right distance away, the face detection won't kick in and then the other features it incorporates, i.e. wink shutter and smile shutter, won't work either.
Either it's a a hardware/software issue, or a knowledge gap issue on my part, but it was perplexing to be wondering why it seemed easier to take a selfie with the kit zoom lens than with this.
It's not a deal breaker by any means -- the pictures it takes are beautiful, including selfies. Just can't always rely on the software helping with the latter.
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- DanReviewed in the United Kingdom on April 9, 2013
Great option for closer range shooting
