arconovum's reviews

  • Samsung 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 ED OIS NX

    6 out of 10 points and not recommended
    decent optics
    defective mechanics, poor battery life,terrible warranty from samsung

    I was very disappointed in this lens , not in the optics but in the mechanics. When OIS was enabled a high pitched tone was emitted from the lens in the 10,000 - 11,000 hz (hertz) range, at about 10 dB(decibels), it was very audible and also could be recorded on the cameras microphones , in this case a samsung nx200. Further testing on other lenses (of the same) at the store revealed the same defect.

    I don't know if this is due to the defect of this lens , probably not, but it really eats into your battery life. You will only get about 1/3 of the 330 expected shots with this lens.

    Contacting samsung about the problem was also disappointing , samsung considers a lens an accessory and no warranty is respected, samsung would not replace , or repair the unit. Returning the unit to the store was my only option.

    reviewed March 20th, 2012 (purchased for $800)
  • Samsung 85mm f/1.4 ED SSA NX

    7 out of 10 points and not recommended
    good bokeh effect, good DOF
    extremely heavy, poor auto focus and speed, no warranty

    This will be a review in two stages, I will return in 1 week to complete the review when the weather gets better.

    I chose NO to the question"Would you recommend this lens?" on the review submission form, primarily due to warranty issue for this lens (see the first part of the review for more details).

    So as all lenses from Samsung , the warranty is a major drawback, especially in this case when 1000.00 dollars is at stake. As I have said before if it gets damaged, breaks, or fails Samsung will not repair nor replace it because they have categorized a lens as an accessory and the product is shipped without a warranty in the box.

    Again this lens does no better as all other major lenses in the Samsung NX line when it comes to auto-focus , The auto focus is slow and often will fail to focus at all, and numerous retries and repositioning of the camera are required to allow the camera to achieve focus. But the manual focus works better than other lenses I have reviewed, far less effort is required to focus properly.

    The lens's auto focus also does poorly when using the video option of the camera (nx200) , not that you would use this lens for that purpose , but in reality nothing stops you from using it.

    The minimum focus distance for this lens is 2.7 feet in manual and auto focus, but you can reduce that to 2.5 feet in manual , but auto focus cannot. In that minimum distance you can fit a subject 7 inches wide, and 5.5 inches high, nothing bigger than a short coffee mug.

    The weight is also a drawback to this lens, It is very heavy, I feel very uncomfortable hanging this expensive warranty-less lens from the cheap camera strap provided with the nx200 camera.

    As I said I will be back in one weeks time to review the optics, and to make my final say about this lens.

    .

    reviewed April 23rd, 2012 (purchased for $1,000)
  • Samsung 30mm f/2 NX

    5 out of 10 points and not recommended
    good optics.
    terrible for video , pathetic auto focus, terrible warranty

    As usual with my review of Samsung nx200, and various Samsung specific lenses, I have very little good to say, unfortunately Samsung seems to forget that a lot of competition exists in this market, and make things plagued with unacceptable flaws and defects. So without further ado here is my review of this lens.

    So this lens has decent optics, its light weight, not too expensive, Ifunction is fun etc.. etc.. and this is all expected. You get this from all other reviews of this lens on the web. Now I will tell you what you won't see in these reviews after 2 months of testing and usage.

    As I have said in previous reviews holds true here on the subject of auto-focus being imperfect and requires manual intervention.

    This lens cannot / should not be used at all for video.
    Auto-focus mode is far too slow to completely useless(this is no exaggeration), it often fails to be able to focus at all or will take about 5 to 8 seconds to finally focus in on the subject, and of course this is not just the fault of the lens but the camera. Also in Auto focus mode the lens does a lot of mechanical noise that gets recorded on the video, and is very loud.

    In manual focus mode its the same problem when in video mode, the lens focus ring rubs and grinds and makes a lot of noise on the video when using the provided mic on the camera.

    Manual focusing is not direct drive so to speak, it's software trying to interpret your motions on the focus ring, and so you don't just turn a little to the right to get perfect focus , you have to start from zero every time from a totally blurred view and work your way back to focus again, and this you will do over and over 3 to 4 times before you get it right, forget this in a video, and never mind the picture perfect moment for anything in motion.

    In the end I cannot recommend this lens for the nx200 camera, because the two do not compliment each other the way a consumer would expect, a consumer of a point and shoot will expect to use the video abilities of a camera , without focusing issues and noise.

    As all lenses from Samsung , they are considered an accessory , no warranty is respected if it fails , Samsung will not repair it nor replace it, this is what I was told directly from Samsung while speaking to an agent and floor manager.

    This being my 3rd review I feel I should say this. You will find that I am very strong worded about my reviews, Yes I am , I don't know what Samsung are thinking but if they are thinking that somehow they are paving the way to a new diminished standard of making cameras and equipment, my advice is to re-think your strategy.

    reviewed April 18th, 2012 (purchased for $400)