Samsung EX1 camera is made precisely “in spite of”. For example, the supposed flagship of the company’s product line has a lens with only 3x zoom although even the cheapest budget models already boast 4-5x zoom .
10MP 24-72 3 x 3.0″
Years ago, when the grass was greener, the trees were taller, high-quality photographic equipment was much more expensive and nobody knew Samsung at all on the photographic market, there was a widespread fun among manufacturers: to produce super-high quality compacts.
The ones that often were not the coolest in objective technical specifications, but stood out significantly in subjective sensations and quality considerations. Canon’s G-series revived not so long ago, Panasonic’s first LX models, Sony’s cameras like DSC-R1….
Excellent compact devices, but ousted from the market by cheaper digital cameras and now “non-smirks” , on the one hand, and on the other hand – by more developed usual compacts just kidding: 7-10x zoom fits in a cigarette pack, and adding two packs together you can already get 30x zoom and some fantastic speed capabilities . It seems that Samsung has not studied this story and now, against all odds, they cheerfully make up for the lost time.
Samsung EX1 camera is made exactly “in spite of”. For example, the proposed flagship of the company’s product line has a lens with only 3x zoom although even the cheapest budget models boast of 4-5x zoom .
The sensor is only 10-megapixel, and not some high-speed one, but quite ordinary: there is no fast burst shooting and video is only recorded at VGA resolution. Smart electronics, no doubt, very smart, but, in principle, not more or less than in other cameras of this manufacturer. What’s the point, then??
First of all it’s subjective: if you’ve always dreamed of a small, light, but solid, high-quality and stylish “classical” camera, make sure you find the EX1 in a store and see it in person – in case you fall in love.
An additional reason would be the fact that the camera lens, while not impressive in large numbers, has a decent wide angle zoom lens starts at 24 mm in 35-mm equivalent . What’s more, the minimum available aperture value at wide-angle is f/1.8, which brings the EX1 very close to the classics of DSLR and rangefinder “regular” lenses with the small correction that you shouldn’t expect exactly the same perfect bokeh from compact optics .
Of course, all this is flavored with extensive manual controls, support for RAW-format which is still a rarity among small cameras and even the ability to use an external flash through the top panel of the “hot shoe” for what generally can only two or three cameras on the market .
The finishing touch: the tilt and swivel display, perfect for taking pictures from unusual angles. With the screen in the EX1 there is no compromise at all: 3-inch bright AMOLED with a resolution of 921 thousand pixels. points. It remains to mention only 1 GB of internal memory for storing images and clips – not a miracle of miracles and in photographic terms does not give anything special, but certainly also a nice option.
Does the Samsung EX1 compact camera make up for its less impressive lens with its decent wide angle capabilities?