Month: April 2014

23/04/2014 / / Nikon 1

For more than a month I’ve been teaching my girlfriend Sani how to take photos consciously by using a “serious” camera, like the Nikon V1. Being someone who wasn’t interested in photography in the past, her experience is limited to taking snapshots with smartphones and full auto compact cameras. Using a camera with manual controls, like aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings, is a totally new experience to her. Nevertheless she enjoyed using the Nikon V1, Nikkor 18.5mm f/1.8 (check out my Review of the lens here) and 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6. I’m guessing it’s the fast AF, operational speed, accurate metering and WB what she’s liking about it. Lacking experience, she can’t put into words what it is that she finds enjoyable about using the gear. We have undertaken several photo walkabouts since I started teaching her. The first time she wasn’t exactly thrilled (I had to twist her arm a bit…), but once we got home, and I deleted the vast majority of rejects and shown her the strongest photos, some of which you can see below, she was very excited. After that it took some time until I finally got to post processing her shots, which was done under her guidance and to her taste. She doesn’t know how to use Lightroom yet, but knows what she likes and how the shots should look.

Sani's photos

12/04/2014 / / C-Mount 25mm f/1.4
03/04/2014 / / Samsung NX mini

The Chinese website Digiphoto.techbang.com just posted the first Samsung NX mini/NXF1 High ISO full resolution sample images. By the looks of things, Samsung’s new 20.5MP BSI-MOS sensor produces very usable photos up to ISO6400. At ISO12800 noise levels increase exponentially, so that this sensitivity level doesn’t even look usable for web size images. Even so, noise performance seems to be on a much higher level than Nikon’s V1 and V2 cameras. How the new V3 will perform remains to be seen.

Samsung-NX-mini-SMART-black-touchscreen