Samsung NX1000 Review

20-50mm Zoom
Below-average zoom ratio, no image stabilization, but good optical performance.

The Samsung NX1000 is available bundled with the Samsung 20-50mm f/3.5-5.6 ED NX lens, which has a 35mm equivalent focal range of about 31-77mm. Its 2.5x zoom ratio is lower than average for a kit lens, and it doesn't go as wide as most kit lenses either. Optical performance is quite good at 20mm, though, with very good sharpness and contrast across most of the frame at f/8, and just minor softness in the corners. Coma distortion in the trees is very low, and chromatic aberration very well controlled (suppressed by the camera), though some minor flare can be seen around bright highlights. Results are also very good at 35mm, with very good sharpness across the frame and negligible chromatic aberration. At full telephoto, sharpness and contrast are are quite good across most of the frame, and chromatic aberration is still very low. Overall, far-field performance is pretty good for a kit lens when stopped-down to f/8.

Macro
A larger-than-average minimum coverage area, with soft detail. Flash throttled-down well.

As with zoom performance, the Samsung NX1000's macro performance will depend entirely on the lens in use. However with the 20-50mm kit lens set to 50mm, the Samsung NX1000 captured a larger-than-average minimum area measuring 3.61 x 2.40 inches (92 x 61 millimeters). The image is soft in the center, and oddly it's sharper near the edges, likely because of focus error. (Most lenses show some softening in the corners at macro distances.) The flash throttled-down well, producing a bright, well-exposed image.

Geometric Distortion
Low distortion with Distortion Correction enabled, much higher at wide angle without correction.

Distortion Correction On (default)

Almost no barrel distortion at 20mm

Slightly high pincushion distortion at 50mm, about 0.2%

Uncorrected (Raw)

High barrel distortion at 20mm, about 1.7%

Slightly high pincushion distortion at 50mm, about 0.2%

With Distortion Correction enabled by default, the 20-50mm kit lens' barrel distortion at wide angle is practically non-existent (0.02%). At full telephoto, pincushion distortion is about 0.2%, but that's pretty low. This is the tendency for the lens to bend straight lines outward (like a barrel -- usually at wide angle) or inward (like a pincushion -- usually at telephoto). It's worth noting here that the default seems to have changed from the prior generation of Samsung CSCs, with distortion correction on by default instead of off. We also don't see part of the framed image cropped away by Distortion Correction like we did with the NX200, which is a nice improvement.

Without distortion correction when converting raw files, the Samsung NX1000's 20-50mm kit lens produced much higher-than-average distortion at wide angle, but about the same at telephoto. At wide angle, barrel distortion is 1.7% and at telephoto, pincushion distortion is unchanged at about 0.2%. Disabling Distortion Correction should produce similar distortion in JPEGs.

Chromatic Aberration and Corner Sharpness
JPEGs have low chromatic aberration, though uncorrected raw files have much higher. The lens produced some soft corners at telephoto.

Maximum Aperture
20mm, f/3.5: Lower right C.A.: Low Softness: Minor blurring	20mm, f/3.5: Center C.A.: Very low Softness: Sharp
50mm, f/5.6: Lower right C.A.: Very low Softness: Quite soft	50mm, f/5.6: Center C.A.: Very low Softness: Fairly sharp

Chromatic Aberration. Chromatic aberration in the corners with the NX1000's 20-50mm kit lens at wide angle (20mm) is quite low with just a hint of coloration, and very low in the center. At full telephoto (50mm), chromatic aberration is very low.

Corner Softness. The lens produced some soft corners in a few shots, though performance wide open is better than average for a kit lens. At maximum wide angle, all four corners exhibit very minor blurring and loss of contrast, but softness does extend fairly deep into the frame. The center of the image is however very sharp with excellent contrast. At full telephoto, the bottom right corner is quite soft with lower contrast, and softness extends fairly deep into the frame, however the other corners are sharper, so our copy of this lens is slightly de-centered. The center at telephoto is fairly sharp, just a touch softer with lower contrast than wide angle.

Vignetting. There's very little corner shading ("vignetting") at both wide angle and telephoto when wide open as indicated by the darker corner crops, so light fall-off isn't really an issue with this lens.

f/8 Aperture
20mm, f/8: Lower right C.A.: Low Softness: Slightly soft	20mm, f/8: Center C.A.: Very low Softness: Sharp
50mm, f/8: Lower right C.A.: Low Softness: Soft	50mm, f/8: Center C.A.: Very low Softness: Sharp

Stopped down to f/8, corners improve at both wide-angle and telephoto, but still remain a little soft especially at telephoto. Vignetting is negligible at both wide-angle and telephoto.

C.A. Reduction in JPEGs. As you can see from the crops above comparing in-camera JPEGs (left) to Adobe Camera Raw converted SRW files (right) taken with the 20-50mm lens, the Samsung NX1000's image processor does a good job at suppressing much of the lateral chromatic aberration produced by the lens during JPEG processing.

Accuracy
Excellent accuracy from the LCD monitor.

The Samsung NX1000's LCD monitor proved to be quite accurate, showing just over 100% coverage with our Samsung 60mm f/2.8 macro lens. Excellent results here.

Saturation & Hue Accuracy
Muted colors, but good overall hue accuracy.

ISO Sensitivity
100	200	400	800
1,600	3,200	6,400	12,800
In the diagram above, the squares show the original color, and the circles show the color that the camera captured. More saturated colors are located toward the periphery of the graph. Hue changes as you travel around the center. Thus, hue-accurate, highly saturated colors appear as lines radiating from the center. Mouse over the links to compare ISOs and click for larger versions.

Saturation. The Samsung NX1000 produces images with muted colors that are much less saturated than most cameras. The NX1000 only pushes dark blues, green and browns a bit while undersaturating most other colors. Default saturation is only 99.6% (0.4% undersaturated) at base ISO, which much lower than the typical 110% mean saturation we normally see. Saturation falls gradually as ISO rises, reaching as low as 93.9% at ISO 3,200, though it rebounds slightly to 99% at ISO 6,400 and 97.4% at ISO 12,800. You can of course tweak saturation to your liking, or choose a different color mode. Most consumer digital cameras produce color that's more highly saturated (more intense) than found in the original subjects. This is simply because most people like their color a bit brighter than life.

Skin tones. The Samsung NX1000 did well with Caucasian skin tones, rendering them with a pinkish tint that is realistic-looking. Darker skin tones had a slightly orange push, but overall skin tones were quite pleasing in simulated daylight, as long as you don't adjust contrast. Where oversaturation is most problematic is on Caucasian skin tones, as it's very easy for these "memory colors" to be seen as too bright, too pink, too yellow, etc.

Hue. The Samsung NX1000 shifts yellow toward green and orange toward yellow moderately, but other shifts in color were quite minor; even the cyan to blue shift we normally see is very small. Mean "delta-C" color error at base ISO is 4.43 after correction for saturation, which is pretty good, better than average. Hue is "what color" the color is.

Saturation Adjustment
Samsung NX1000 lets you adjust image saturation (as well as contrast and sharpness) in nine steps. As can be seen below, the saturation adjustment was quite effective and covers a useful range, but it does impact contrast somewhat, at least for some colors. This is not uncommon though, as it's pretty tricky not to impact contrast when adjusting saturation so much.

Saturation Adjustment Examples
-4	-2	0	+2	+4

The table above shows results with every other saturation setting, including the default and the two extremes. Click on any thumbnail above, then click again to see the full-sized image.

Exposure and White Balance

Indoors, incandescent lighting
The Samsung NX1000 struggled with white balance here, producing results that are too warm or too cool. Average amount of positive exposure compensation required.

Indoors, under normal incandescent lighting, color balance is a bit too warm with the Auto setting, with a reddish cast. The Incandescent setting resulted in a fairly strong green cast, and the 2,600 Kelvin setting produced a strong blue-green tint. Manual white balance produced the best results, though with a bias toward yellow-green. The Samsung NX1000 required an average amount of positive exposure compensation here, at +0.3 EV. (Our test lighting for this shot is a mixture of 60 and 100 watt household incandescent bulbs, a pretty yellow light source, but a very common one in typical home settings here in the U.S.)

Outdoors, daylight
Somewhat cool colors with slightly high contrast under harsh lighting. Better than average exposure accuracy.

The Samsung NX1000 produced pleasant pinkish skintones when set to Manual white balance in our "Sunlit" Portrait test, which we prefer to the slightly pale skintones from the Auto setting. The NX1000 required +0.3 EV exposure compensation to keep facial tones bright on the mannequin. The average for this shot is about +0.7 EV, so that's pretty good. Default contrast is a little high, though, so quite a few highlights in her shirt and flowers are blown. The NX1000 did a pretty good job with our Far-field shot, with very good exposure accuracy, though colors are slightly cool and muted. The Samsung NX1000 preserved all but the brightest highlights here, though it did generate some very dark and posterized shadows.

See full set of test images with explanations
See thumbnails of all test and gallery images

Resolution
Very high resolution, 2,200 lines of strong detail in JPEGs, about the same from ACR converted raw files.

In-camera JPEGs of our laboratory resolution chart at the highest quality setting reveal sharp, distinct line patterns to about 2,200 lines per picture height in the horizontal direction, and to about 2,200 lines per picture height in the vertical direction. Complete extinction of the pattern doesn't occur until a little over 3,400 lines in the horizontal direction, and about 3,300 lines in the vertical. An Adobe Camera Raw conversion of a matching raw file showed very similar resolution along with a lot more color moiré, so the NX1000 does a great job at extracting maximum high-contrast resolution at base ISO. Use these numbers to compare with other cameras of similar resolution, or use them to see just what higher resolution can mean in terms of potential detail.

See full set of test images with explanations
See thumbnails of all test and gallery images

Sharpness & Detail
Very good sharpness and detail overall, though with some visible edge-enhancement artifacts on some high-contrast subjects. Low levels of noise suppression generally leaves excellent detail at base ISO.

Sharpness. The Samsung NX1000 captures sharp, detailed images, though some edge enhancement artifacts are visible on high-contrast subjects such as the sharpening halos around the thicker branches and pine cones in the crop above left. Fine detail such as the smaller twigs and pine needles show very little edge enhancement, yet show excellent detail, likely the result of a fairly weak low-pass filter and a light-handed approach to noise reduction at base ISO. Overall, very good results here. Edge enhancement creates the illusion of sharpness by enhancing colors and tones right at the edge of a rapid transition in color or tone.

Detail. The crop above right shows relatively minor noise suppression in the darkest areas of the model's hair, as most individual strands of hair are well defined except in very low contrast areas. Overall, detail is very good for an APS-C sensor at base ISO, especially one with 20 megapixels of resolution. Excellent results here. Noise-suppression systems in digital cameras tend to flatten-out detail in areas of subtle contrast. The effects can often be seen in shots of human hair, where the individual strands are lost and an almost "watercolor" look appears.

Aliasing Artifacts. There are however what look to be aliasing artifacts and "jaggies" in areas of fine vertical detail and high local contrast, such as in the strands of hair on the model's forehead at lower ISOs (see ISO 100 crop at right). We've seen similar artifacts in images from previous models, especially Canon consumer SLRs, so they're not that unusual. The aberrations are very subtle to be sure, but they're something to be aware of if you plan to make very large prints of similar subject matter. They also appear in raw files processed with Adobe Camera Raw, a further indication that the NX1000's low pass (anti-aliasing) filter isn't very strong.

Raw vs In-Camera JPEGs
As noted above, the Samsung NX1000 produces sharp, detailed in-camera JPEGs. Let's see how the bundled raw converter and Adobe Camera Raw perform on the same image:

Super Fine Camera JPEG (Defaults)	Samsung Raw Converter 4 (Defaults)	Samsung Raw Converter 4 (Sharpened)	Adobe Camera Raw (Sharpened)

In the table above, mousing over a link at the bottom will load the corresponding crop in the area above, and clicking on the link will load the full resolution image.

Here, you can see that the Samsung Raw Converter 4 conversion at default settings resulted in an image that is quite a bit softer than the in-camera JPEG. (Normally, manufacturer provided converters produce results very similar to in-camera JPEGs at default settings, but Samsung Raw Converter 4 is a rebadged version of SilkyPix, so it probably doesn't implement the exact same image processing algorithms as the camera.) The bundled raw converter has quite a few features and presets, but we found that turning off sharping in the editor itself, and then applying a strong Unsharp Mask of 300% with a radius of 0.3 when generating the output JPEG produced better results. Even sharpened, the camera produced better fine detail than the bundled converter, as the software's noise reduction tends to flatten fine detail. The Adobe Camera Raw conversion (which was sharpened in Photoshop also using USM of 300% with a radius of 0.3) revealed slightly better detail than the camera JPEG, though not a whole lot, but there are less noticeable sharpening artifacts. The ACR conversion also shows more noise in flat areas, which is often the case. One of the advantages of shooting raw is being able to decide for yourself the optimum trade-off between detail and noise, especially when the camera provides very limited control over noise reduction like the NX1000. At low ISOs, though, the Samsung NX1000 generally does a great job at extracting the excellent detail captured by its 20-megapixel sensor, even if default sharpening is a bit high.

ISO & Noise Performance
Very good detail vs noise tradeoff to ISO 1,600, though strong noise reduction and high chroma noise at higher ISOs.

Default High ISO Noise Reduction (On)
ISO 100	ISO 200	ISO 400
ISO 800	ISO 1,600	ISO 3,200
ISO 6,400	ISO 12,800

The Samsung NX1000's light-handed approach to luminance noise reduction at lower ISOs leaves a lot of fine detail intact up to ISO 400, though some luminance noise is visible even at base ISO. At ISO 800, luminance noise reduction is noticeably stronger smudging some hairs together, but fine detail is still very good. Some chroma noise is visible in the shadows, though, and this gets worse at higher ISOs. Naturally, luminance and chrominance noise is higher at ISO 1,600, but a lot of fine detail remains intact. Chroma noise becomes quite strong at ISO 3,200 though, with small but noticeable clouds of color blotching, as well as an obvious drop in detail from more aggressive noise reduction. This of course worsens at ISO 6,400 where fine detail is smudged away to give a stippled effect, while chroma noise is spread out into larger, brighter color blotches. At 12,800, chroma noise is very high with more obvious purple, green and orange color blotches, as well as stronger luminance noise.

Overall, though, a better performance than the NX200 at higher ISOs where the NX200's aggressive noise reduction blurred-away more detail. Compared to recent APS-C competitors, the NX1000 does well at lower ISOs, but chroma noise isn't handled as well in higher ISO JPEGs. As always, see the Print Quality section below for maximum recommended print sizes at each ISO.

A note about focus for this shot: We shoot this image at f/4, using one of three very sharp reference lenses (70mm Sigma f/2.8 macro for most cameras, 60mm f/2.8 Nikkor macro for Nikon bodies without a drive motor, Olympus Zuiko 50mm f/2.0 for Four Thirds and Micro Four Thirds bodies). For the Samsung NX1000, we used the very sharp 85mm f/1.4 ED SSA NX. To insure that the hair detail we use for making critical judgements about camera noise processing and detail rendering is in sharp focus at the relatively wide aperture we're shooting at, the focus target at the center of the scene is on a movable stand. This lets us compensate for front- or back-focus by different camera bodies, even those that lack micro-focus adjustments. This does mean, though, that the focus target itself may appear soft or slightly out of focus for bodies that front- or back-focused with the reference lens. If you click to view the full-size image for one of these shots and notice that the focus target is fuzzy, you don't need to email and tell us about it; we already know it. :-) The focus target position will simply have been adjusted to insure that the rest of the scene is focused properly.

Red Channel NR. Although the Samsung NX1000 does better at preserving fine detail at high ISOs than the NX200, it still struggles with the low-contrast detail in our red-leaf cloth at low ISOs. And like the NX200, the NX1000 doesn't provide much control over noise reduction either: only Off and On options for both High ISO NR and Long Term NR are offered. The user manual doesn't mention which ISO setting High ISO NR kicks in at, but from our Still Life ISO/NR series, it looks like it's at least ISO 1,600, so turning it off is no help at lower ISOs. Have a look at the crops below to see how much subtle detail is lost in the red leaf pattern to noise reduction even at ISO 100:

ISO 100
NX1000 JPEG, High ISO NR = "Off"	NX200 JPEG, High ISO NR = "Off"	NX1000 Raw, ACR, Default NR

The above crops compare NX1000 and NX200 in-camera JPEGs to an ACR converted NX1000 raw file (far right). All shots were taken at ISO 100, and the converted raw file has default noise reduction applied. As you can see, the NX1000 does better than the NX200 with our red-leaf cloth, but still applies fairly aggressive noise reduction compared to the Adobe Camera Raw conversion at default noise reduction.

Extremes: Sunlit, dynamic range, and low light tests
Very high resolution with good detail, but somewhat high default contrast and limited dynamic range. Good low-light performance, though Auto white balance struggled.

Sunlight. The Samsung NX1000 struggled a bit with the deliberately harsh lighting of this test, as do a lot of cameras. Quite a few highlights are clipped in the white shirt and flowers, while some shadows are still quite dark, though noise in shadows is actually pretty good (apart from the posterization mentioned in very deep shadows). We preferred the +0.3 EV exposure overall, because the exposure of skintones in the face is better than 0 EV and +0.7 EV has too many clipped highlights. Depending on the photographer, you could lean one way or the other. Advanced users will want to shoot darker, to hold highlight detail. For those NX1000 owners that are going to want to just print an image, the +0.3 EV image would probably produce the best-looking print with little or no tweaking. The bottom line though, is that the NX1000 struggled in harsh lighting, producing either a slightly dim face with better highlight retention in the shirt, or a well-exposed face with more blown highlights in her shirt and flowers.

Because digital cameras are more like slide film than negative film (in that they tend to have a more limited tonal range), we test them in the harshest situations to see how they handle scenes with bright highlights and dark shadows, as well as what kind of sensitivity they have in low light. The shot above is designed to mimic the very harsh, contrasty effect of direct noonday sunlight, a very tough challenge for most digital cameras. (You can read details of this test here. In actual shooting conditions, be sure to use fill flash in situations like the one shown here; it's better to shoot in open shade whenever possible.)

Contrast Adjustment
The Samsung NX1000's contrast adjustment wasn't much help in taming blown highlights in this harsh lighting.

Minimum Contrast
Contrast set to lowest, Auto Exposure	Contrast set to lowest, Auto Exposure

At its lowest contrast setting, the Samsung NX1000 didn't do much better at preserving highlight detail. However, at the lowest contrast setting midtones and shadows were boosted quite a bit. The odd-looking coloration in the mannequin's face is due to drop in saturation where contrast was reduced, which is an unfortunate interaction.

Contrast Adjustment Examples
-4	-2	0	+2	+4

The table above shows results with every other contrast setting, including the default and two extremes. It's pretty hard to evaluate small differences in contrast on small thumbnails like these, click on any thumbnail to go to the full-size image. It's nice that Samsung offers such a wide range of settings, but as mentioned previously, the NX1000's contrast adjustment helps very little with strong highlights, working mostly in the midtones and shadows. Also mentioned previously, there is some interaction with saturation, most noticeable in the facial tones and flowers at the lower contrast settings.

Because digital cameras are more like slide film than negative film (in that they tend to have a more limited tonal range), we test them in the harshest situations to see how they handle scenes with bright highlights and dark shadows, as well as what kind of sensitivity they have in low light. The shot above is designed to mimic the very harsh, contrasty effect of direct noonday sunlight, a very tough challenge for most digital cameras. (You can read details of this test here.)

Dynamic Range
A key parameter in a digital camera is its Dynamic Range, the range of brightness that can be faithfully recorded. At the upper end of the tonal scale, dynamic range is dictated by the point at which the RGB data "saturates" at values of 255, 255, 255. At the lower end of the tonal scale, dynamic range is determined by the point at which there ceases to be any useful difference between adjacent tonal steps. Note the use of the qualifier "useful" in there: While it's tempting to evaluate dynamic range as the maximum number of tonal steps that can be discerned at all, that measure of dynamic range has very little relevance to real-world photography. What we care about as photographers is how much detail we can pull out of the shadows before image noise becomes too objectionable. This, of course, is a very subjective matter, and will vary with the application and even the subject matter in question. (Noise will be much more visible in subjects with large areas of flat tints and subtle shading than it would in subjects with strong, highly contrasting surface texture.)

What makes most sense then, is to specify useful dynamic range in terms of the point at which image noise reaches some agreed-upon threshold. To this end, Imatest computes a number of different dynamic range measurements, based on a variety of image noise thresholds. The noise thresholds are specified in terms of f-stops of equivalent luminance variation in the final image file, and dynamic range is computed for noise thresholds of 1.0 (low image quality), 0.5 (medium image quality), 0.25 (medium-high image quality) and 0.1 (high image quality). For most photographers and most applications, the noise thresholds of 0.5 and 0.25 f-stops are probably the most relevant to the production of acceptable-quality finished images, but many noise-sensitive shooters will insist on the 0.1 f-stop limit for their most critical work. A full discussion of all the data Imatest produces is really beyond the scope of this review: Visit the Imatest website for details of what the program measures, how it performs its computations, and how to interpret its output.

JPEG. The graph at right (click for a larger version) was generated using Imatest's dynamic range analysis for an in-camera NX1000 JPEG file with a nominally-exposed density step target (Stouffer 4110). At default settings and ISO 200 (we found total dynamic range was optimal at ISO 200, not ISO 100), the graph shows 9.76 f-stops of total dynamic range, with 7.97 f-stops at the "High" quality level. Roll-off at the highlight end of the curve is fairly gradual, but at the low end, some steps are spread out, indicative of a tendency of the deepest shadows to break up into discrete levels, which can be seen when manipulating levels in our outdoor shots. Still, these scores aren't bad for a camera JPEG. Compared to the NX200, the NX1000 scored slightly better at the "High" quality level (7.97 vs 7.62 f-stops), but total dynamic range was quite a bit lower (9.76 vs 10.5 f-stops). Note though that this measurement has a margin of error of about 1/3 f-stop, so differences of less than 0.33 can be ignored.

Raw. The graph at right is from the same Stouffer 4110 stepchart image captured as a raw (.SRW) file, processed with Adobe Camera Raw. The Samsung NX1000's processed raw file actually scored slightly lower than the matching in-camera JPEG at the highest quality level, with an insignificant decrease from 7.97 f-stops to 7.86, however total dynamic range increased significantly from 9.76 to 12.7 f-stops, though response at the shadow end of the curve is still not that well-behaved. Compare that to the NX200, which scored a nearly identical 7.89 f-stops at the highest quality level, but a lower 11.2 f-stops in total dynamic range. It's worth noting here that Adobe Camera Raw's default noise reduction settings usually reduce overall noise relative to the levels in the in-camera JPEG, which tends to boost the dynamic range numbers for the High Quality threshold. That wasn't really the case for the NX1000 for much of the tonal curve (compare the noise plots in the bottom left of the graphs above).

Smart Range
Smart Range is Samsung's name for their dynamic range enhancement technology. It works similar to Canon's Highlight Tone Priority, preserving highlights at the expense of noisier shadows.

Outdoor Portrait Smart Range Example
	Smart Range: Off On

Despite the apparent brightness, very few highlights were clipped with Smart Range set to On in our "Sunlit" Portrait shot above. Smart Range doesn't affect levels in the shadows much, just boosting saturation, but because it uses ISO 200 there's more noise. The NX1000 attempts to compensate by applying stronger noise reduction, which leads to some loss of detail in the shadows.

Far-field Smart Range Example
Smart Range:	Off	On

Here, you can see Smart Range at work with our Far-field shot, reducing highlights in the clock tower and pillars, but again, deep shadows are less detailed due to stronger noise reduction.

	1 fc 11 lux	1/2 fc 5.5 lux	1/4 fc 2.7 lux	1/8 fc 1.3 lux	1/16 fc 0.67 lux	1/16fc No NR
ISO 100	2 s f2.8	4 s f2.8	8 s f2.8	15 s f2.8	30 s f2.8	30 s f2.8
ISO 200	1 s f2.8	2 s f2.8	4 s f2.8	8 s f2.8	15 s f2.8	15 s f2.8
ISO 400	0.5 s f2.8	1 s f2.8	2 s f2.8	4 s f2.8	8 s f2.8	8 s f2.8
ISO 800	1/4 s f2.8	0.5 s f2.8	1 s f2.8	2 s f2.8	4 s f2.8	4 s f2.8
ISO 1600	1/8 s f2.8	1/4 s f2.8	0.5 s f2.8	1 s f2.8	2 s f2.8	2 s f2.8
ISO 3200	1/15 s f2.8	1/8 s f2.8	1/4 s f2.8	0.5 s f2.8	1 s f2.8	1 s f2.8
ISO 6400	1/30 s f2.8	1/15 s f2.8	1/8 s f2.8	1/4 s f2.8	0.5 s f2.8	0.5 s f2.8
ISO 12800	1/60 s f2.8	1/30 s f2.8	1/15 s f2.8	1/8 s f2.8	1/4 s f2.8	1/4 s f2.8

Low Light. The Samsung NX1000 performed reasonably well in our low light test. The NX1000's slowest shutter speed of 30 seconds combined with the kit lens' maximum aperture of f/3.5 resulted in slightly dim (but still usable) images at the lowest light level we test at (1/16 foot-candle) at ISO 100. Noise is well controlled up to ISO 800, though at higher ISOs there are moderate amounts of fine luminance noise and increasing chroma noise.

Auto white balance did a reasonable job here at higher light levels, producing fairly neutral if slightly cool color balance, though there's sometimes a blue-green bias at lower light levels at ISOs up to 800. Interestingly, the color shift is not present when High ISO NR and Long Term NR are turned Off (right-most column). Some horizontal banding is visible at very high ISOs (starting at ISO 3,200), but that's not unusual. We didn't notice any issues with hot/dead pixels except when NR was turned Off, where they're expected.

The Samsung NX1000's autofocus system was only able to focus down to just below the 1/4 foot-candle light level unassisted with an f/2.8 lens, which isn't very good. The NX1000 was however able to focus in complete darkness with its built-in focus assist lamp enabled.

How bright is this? The one foot-candle light level that this test begins at roughly corresponds to the brightness of typical city street-lighting at night. Cameras performing well at that level should be able to snap good-looking photos of street-lit scenes.

NOTE: This low light test is conducted with a stationary subject, and the camera mounted on a sturdy tripod. Most digital cameras will fail miserably when faced with a moving subject in dim lighting. (For example, a child's ballet recital or a holiday pageant in a gymnasium.) Thanks to their phase-detect AF systems, digital SLRs tend to do much better than point & shoots, but you still shouldn't expect a quick autofocus lock with moving subjects. The NX1000 uses contrast-detect autofocus, as is found in most point & shoot cameras, so its low-light focusing ability is less than that of most SLRs with phase-detect systems. That said, though, the larger, more sensitive pixels of the NX1000's sensor do better under dim lighting than do the tiny pixels of most point & shoots, (A useful trick is to just prop the camera on a convenient surface, and use its self-timer to release the shutter. This avoids any jiggling from your finger pressing the shutter button, and can work quite well when you don't have a tripod handy.)

Print Quality

Good 24 x 36-inch prints from ISO 100-400; ISO 1,600 prints are good at 13 x 19; ISO 12,800 prints make a good, if contrasty, 4 x 6.

ISO 100 shots are good enough for wall display at 30 x 40, but slight softness leads us to prefer the 24 x 36-inch prints. Our challenging red leaf fabric swatch is a little soft for such a low ISO setting.

ISO 200 shots also look very good at 24 x 36.

ISO 400 images still make a very good 24 x 36-inch print. Shadows have slight chroma noise, but it's not overpowering.

ISO 800 look better with a drop to 16 x 20 inches thanks to increasing noise in the shadows and more noticeable sharpening halos at larger sizes.

ISO 1,600 images are usable at 16 x 20, with surprisingly good detail in high-contrast areas, but shadows are peppered with luminance and chrominance blobs that look better at 13 x 19.

ISO 3,200 sees the shadow noise I describe above start to appear in solid colors as well, reducing apparent contrast and marring the image. Printing at 11 x 14 reduces this effect somewhat, but 8 x 10 returns it to general acceptability.

ISO 6,400 prints are darker, with higher contrast, pumped saturation, and more noticeable noise. 8 x 10s are usable, but not great. 5 x 7s are much better.

ISO 12,800 prints are good at 4 x 6 in terms of detail are good, but contrast and saturation are pumped a bit.

Overall, the Samsung NX1000 turns out good looking prints. The noise pattern is signature Samsung, with an odd staticky look that gets unappealing at about ISO 800. Samsung has improved noise suppression noticeably, but image quality still takes a turn at around ISO 3,200. Given the pumped saturation and contrast from there on up, we recommend shooting raw when venturing above ISO 1,600.

Testing hundreds of digital cameras, we've found that you can only tell just so much about a camera's image quality by viewing its images on-screen. Ultimately, there's no substitute for printing a lot of images and examining them closely. For this reason, we now routinely print sample images from the cameras we test on our Canon Pro9000 Mark II studio printer, and the Canon Pixma MP610 here in the office. (See the Canon Pixma Pro9000 Mark II review for details on that model.)

Sluggish autofocus, cycle times and buffer clearing, but good burst rates.

Startup and shutdown times are about average for a CSC, but much longer than most SLRs. (Firmware v1.12 did however reduce startup from 3.1 seconds with v1.01, so be sure to upgrade.) Buffer clearing will depend on image size and quality, as well as card speed. Here the Samsung NX1000 is very sluggish when RAW files were included, even with a very fast card. (The NX1000 does not appear to take advantage of faster UHS-I cards.)

Mode switching is sluggish, especially Record to Play, but displaying a recorded images is snappy.

The Samsung NX1000 exhibited full-autofocus shutter lag (with the subject at a fixed distance) that ranged from 0.598 second in single-area AF mode to 0.666 second in multi-area AF mode when using the 20-50mm kit lens in our tests. This is a much slower than average for a CSC these days, and even slower than most point and shoots. Enabling the bundled flash increased shutter lag to a pedestrian 0.833 second, to account for the preflash metering.

Shutter lag was 0.435 second in continuous mode AF, though the subject may not be in focus in this mode. When manually focused, the Samsung NX1000's lag time dropped to 0.121 second, which is a tad slow. The NX1000's prefocused shutter lag time was also a bit slow, at 0.103 second. These times are significantly slower than the Samsung NX20, and it's not because a different lens was used as manual focus and prefocused are also quite a bit slower. (The NX20 managed 0.060s and 0.044s for manual focus and prefocused shutter lag.)

To minimize the effect of different lens' focusing speed, we test AF-active shutter lag with the lens already set to the correct focal distance.

Single-shot cycle times are quite sluggish, ranging from 1.47 seconds for large/superfine JPEGs to 1.31 seconds for RAW files.

Continuous Hi mode at full resolution was well above average for its class, though, at about 8.2 frames-per-second for large/superfine JPEGs. That dropped to 7.2 fps for RAW and 7 fps for RAW+LSF JPEGs, but that's still pretty fast. Buffer depths were somewhat limited though, at only 10 large/superfine JPEGs, and 8 RAW or RAW + LSF JPEGs. Note that our test target for this is designed to be difficult to compress, so JPEG burst lengths may be longer with typical subjects. The NX1000 has a Burst mode that can capture at up to 30 frames-per-second at a reduced resolution of 5 megapixels, however we didn't test that mode. As mentioned previously, buffer clearing is quite slow, though, taking up to 27 seconds to clear after a burst of 8 RAW + LSF JPEG frames, and that's with a very fast card. (It doesn't appear that the NX1000 takes advantage of faster UHS-I cards.)

Flash recycle was a bit slow, taking an average of 3.5 seconds after a full power discharge.

Download speeds via USB 2.0 were just okay. You may want to consider a separate card reader, especially if you shoot a lot of RAW files or HD videos. (Note that this test was performed with a SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/sec UHS-I SDHC: Slower cards would likely show slower transfer times.)

Bottom line, the Samsung NX1000's performance is a mixed bag. Startup is a bit sluggish but fairly typical for a CSC (after upgrading to firmware v1.11). Autofocus speeds are slower than average compared to recent competitors, and prefocused shutter lag is also a bit slow. Single-shot cycle times are sluggish, but continuous mode speeds are quite good. Buffer depths are shallow though, and buffer clearing very slow, especially with RAW files.

Battery Life
Slightly below average battery life for a compact system camera.

The Samsung NX1000 uses a custom rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack for power, and comes with both a single battery and charger. Samsung rates the NX1000's battery life at 320 shots per charge. That's a bit below average for CSCs tested using the CIPA standard, so we recommend getting a second battery for your NX1000 if you plan any extended outings or shoot a lot of video.

The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of (on a fully-charged rechargeable battery), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))

Coverage and Range
A somewhat weak flash with uneven coverage. About average exposure compensation required.

Coverage. Flash coverage from the Samsung NX1000's bundled flash is uneven at wide angle (20mm), leaving corners and a band across the center of our flash test image a little dim. Narrow coverage at wide angle isn't unusual, though, and some of the corner fall-off is from the lens itself. Coverage is more uniform at telephoto (50mm), though exposure is darker and some fall-off is still noticeable.

Exposure. Our Indoor Portrait test scene is bright with +0.7 EV exposure compensation, about average for this test. The camera's Slow-Sync flash mode produced an overly bright image at the default setting, with a strong orange cast from the ambient room lighting from the longer exposure.

Flash Range: Wide Angle
6 ft	7 ft	8 ft	9 ft	10 ft	11 ft
1/40 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/40 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/40 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/40 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/40 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/40 sec f3.5 ISO 200
12 ft	13 ft	14 ft	15 ft	16 ft
1/40 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/40 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/40 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/40 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/40 sec f3.5 ISO 200

Flash Range: Telephoto
6 ft	7 ft	8 ft	9 ft	10 ft	11 ft
1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200
12 ft	13 ft	14 ft	15 ft	16 ft
1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200

ISO 200 Range. With the 20-50mm kit lens, flash exposure starts out reasonably bright at 6 feet at wide angle, roughly maintaining the same brightness out to about 10 feet, then drops off from there. There were some inconsistencies in brightness, though, such as the brighter image at 14 feet versus 13 feet. At full telephoto, flash exposure is quite dim at 6 feet but becomes brighter up to 9 feet, then decreases in brightness from that point on. The brightest exposure (9 feet) is however still dim, so we rate the range at less than 6 feet.

Manufacturer-Specified Flash Range
Wide Angle	Telephoto
10.6 feet ISO 200	6.6 feet ISO 200

Manufacturer Specified Flash Test. The Samsung NX1000's bundled flash is rated at a Guide Number of 8 meters at ISO 100. That works out to about 10.6 feet at wide angle, and 6.6 feet at telephoto with the kit lens at maximum aperture at ISO 200. In the shots above, the NX1000 produced a fairly bright target at wide angle, but flash exposure at full telephoto is quite dim. Given the wide angle shot is reasonably close to ideal brightness, we'd say Samsung's flash rating is credible. Our standard test method for flash range uses a fixed setting of ISO 200, to provide a fair basis of comparison between cameras. We also shoot two shots using the manufacturer-specified camera settings, at the range the company claims for the camera, to assess the validity of the specific claims.