Carshalton is on the southern edge of London, where the town meets the country. Unlike many places in the world where 'urban sprawl' has been allowed to happen, England has some strong planning laws and a system of 'Green Belts' which surround cities and stop urban sprawl. Here in Carshalton the London Green Belt is a ten minute walk away (farmer's fields and market gardens), yet Central London is only 35 minutes on the train. The combination gives great possibilities for outdoor photography.
Up to this year all my work has been with video, mostly multi-camera for the entertainments industry using Sony cameras costing many thousands of pounds each. My stills photography was restricted to point-and-shoot using simple fixed lens cameras whose main feature had to be that they fitted in a jacket pocket.
Then this year I had a need for a stills camera that offered more facilities so as usual I made a list of what I wanted and then tried to find a camera that matched.
The list was:
1. DSLR body shape and handling but without the bulk and weight if possible.
2. Removeable lenses so that the camera body at least would fit into a coat pocket.
3. Viewfinder as well as screen (for easy use in bright sunlight or studio lighting).
4. Large sensor for narrow DOF if required.
5. Internal flash plus flash hot shoe for external flashgun.
6. Shutter remote trigger socket.
7. 16x9 picture aspect ratio option (to be compatable with video).
8. HDMI socket.
9. Rechargeable battery rather than cells (a spare Li-ion is smaller and lighter than 4 x AA).
10. SD card storage (because I'm standardised on SD cards for other uses).
11. The best price I could get.
You'll notice that the list is all about facilities. I reckoned that the stills camera market is sufficiently mature and competitive that the quality aspect could be taken for granted. I ignored movie facilities as I have video cameras for that.
The size and weight aspect made Compact System seem a lot more attractive than DSLR and by the time I'd eliminated all the CS cameras that didn't have viewfinders the choice was pretty small.
The Samsung NX11 won the day. It had all the features and I found it at Sale price for £299 (about $470 US). This included a free Sandisk 4Gb SD card. To the 18-55mm kit lens I've added the 50-200mm telephoto, which covers most eventualities.
The other major purchase has been Samsung's SEF-42A flashgun, which can be controlled (TTL and zoom) by the camera and which auto-adjusts to the tilt angle. The only oddity is that a (non-Samsung) flash extension cable doesn't work - you can see my query about this in the Samsung NX forum.
As far as the camera is concerned it's all been good. The panoramic feature with auto-stitching has been surprisingly useful as has the auto-changeover from screen to viewfinder simply by holding it to my eye. The handbook has been helpful in getting to know all the controls and the menus although for anyone buying an NX11, note that the downloadable pdf has more information (and is in colour).
Obviously Samsung isn't one of the 'big names' in this part of the market but the NX11 does all I need.
Ray
Up to this year all my work has been with video, mostly multi-camera for the entertainments industry using Sony cameras costing many thousands of pounds each. My stills photography was restricted to point-and-shoot using simple fixed lens cameras whose main feature had to be that they fitted in a jacket pocket.
Then this year I had a need for a stills camera that offered more facilities so as usual I made a list of what I wanted and then tried to find a camera that matched.
The list was:
1. DSLR body shape and handling but without the bulk and weight if possible.
2. Removeable lenses so that the camera body at least would fit into a coat pocket.
3. Viewfinder as well as screen (for easy use in bright sunlight or studio lighting).
4. Large sensor for narrow DOF if required.
5. Internal flash plus flash hot shoe for external flashgun.
6. Shutter remote trigger socket.
7. 16x9 picture aspect ratio option (to be compatable with video).
8. HDMI socket.
9. Rechargeable battery rather than cells (a spare Li-ion is smaller and lighter than 4 x AA).
10. SD card storage (because I'm standardised on SD cards for other uses).
11. The best price I could get.
You'll notice that the list is all about facilities. I reckoned that the stills camera market is sufficiently mature and competitive that the quality aspect could be taken for granted. I ignored movie facilities as I have video cameras for that.
The size and weight aspect made Compact System seem a lot more attractive than DSLR and by the time I'd eliminated all the CS cameras that didn't have viewfinders the choice was pretty small.
The Samsung NX11 won the day. It had all the features and I found it at Sale price for £299 (about $470 US). This included a free Sandisk 4Gb SD card. To the 18-55mm kit lens I've added the 50-200mm telephoto, which covers most eventualities.
The other major purchase has been Samsung's SEF-42A flashgun, which can be controlled (TTL and zoom) by the camera and which auto-adjusts to the tilt angle. The only oddity is that a (non-Samsung) flash extension cable doesn't work - you can see my query about this in the Samsung NX forum.
As far as the camera is concerned it's all been good. The panoramic feature with auto-stitching has been surprisingly useful as has the auto-changeover from screen to viewfinder simply by holding it to my eye. The handbook has been helpful in getting to know all the controls and the menus although for anyone buying an NX11, note that the downloadable pdf has more information (and is in colour).
Obviously Samsung isn't one of the 'big names' in this part of the market but the NX11 does all I need.
Ray