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As a professional photographer, I get to test new cameras when they are released. That’s how I got my hands on a Samsung NX200 for a couple of months now. This review is going to from a professional viewpoint, if you want a less technical review check out my PitsLamp blog.

The nx200 is a mirror less camera system, with some pretty decent lenses. I’ll list the pro and cons of the camera and will explain some a bit lower.

Pro

• Pretty high fps in RAW (4) even higher in JPEG (7)
• Nice intuitive interface
• Hot shoe
• Very accessible buttons on the right locations
• Good quality AMOLED display
• 20 MP
• Good form factor

Con

• Lot’s of noise above ISO 800
• Slow startup time
• No viewfinder
• No swiveling display

That’s the very short version of my likes and dislikes of the Samsung NX200. So now let me get into that in more detail.

Screen

The quality of the screen is great, even in harsh sunlight. However, because of no viewfinder and no swiveling screen, it’s not always very easy to compose a shot. You are limited to how you can look at the screen. This means no shots low by the ground, or high above your head, because composing is not possible if you don’t see the screen.

Ease of use

Samsung always had a pretty good idea how to make a camera easy to use. The menu is clear, easy, logical. All the buttons are located very conveniently, at least for me they are. It’s a joy to use this camera.

However how hard Samsung keeps on trying to have me use the i-Function button on the lens, I don’t really care for it. It’s is one of their selling points since the nx100, it was made after the older rangefinder cameras where you could set almost everything on the lens. But where Samsung got it wrong for me, is that the button is never in the same place on the lenses. Also the first you use the button it doesn’t really react directly. Also the ring on the lens you can use to change the settings, is stepless, but the interface on the screen has steps, that’s confusing. So I prefer to use the buttons on top and on the back.

Quality and speed

A slow startup speed, makes that you better don’t use the battery saving feature, if you want to photograph your kids, make sure you keep it on all the time. However once started, the speed is very good, a very decent fps even in RAW. On the other hand, once you want to look at the photos, it can take quite some time before the RAW’s are processed. So speed overall is not good enough for me.

With 20MP on the camera, the photos are of good quality, large, nice to look at in 100%. The camera is excellent for studio work in tight spaces, I did love it for product shots, especially with the 60mm macro lens. The hot shoe makes it possible to use radio triggers which again is awesome for studio shoots.

But there is a very big drawback, as with the first DSLR’s the camera, absolutely doesn’t perform well in low light conditions. For me in color the photos until 800 iso are acceptable, in b/w you can go up till 1600 but after that you’re out of luck. Too much noise, especially color noise.

Conclusion

I have mixed feelings about this camera. I do like the interface, but I don’t like the quality of the photos. So if you are looking for a small, interchangeable camera with most use being during the day or in studio settings, definitely go for it. If you are looking for an allround camera, don’t go for this one, there are better alternatives out there.

As I was given the samsung NX10 to test for 10 days, I was also handed a sony nex-5 a couple of weeks ago to play with it for one week. I’ve been postponing posting about this camera, because to be honest I didn’t really like it. The problem is not that I didn’t like the format, the quality or the technical parts of it. Actually I was very excited about those beforehand.

So why did I not like the camera, it wasn’t intuitive. I tried to get over it and carried it with me for the whole week. The menu is not very logical, when I got the camera, I popped in a sd-card and wanted to format the card before taking pictures. Too bad it took me over 5 minutes to locate the format option in the menu. Because once you are in the menu, there are several submenu’s but the problem is that they are located vertically below each other and the camera stops scrolling for a little bit once you reach the end of the first menu. So you assume you reached the end of the menu and need to continue in another menu.

Next to that I was very annoyed by the startup time, it takes the camera 3-4 seconds to be able to take a picture. That’s too long for me. When I turn on a camera I want to be able to use it and not wait and loose the moment.

But the most annoying thing was the fact that once you entered either photo or video mode, you could not review the results of the other mode without going to the unlogical menu.

So overall the camera is very nice, it would have been a great competitor compared to the samsung NX10, but sadly enough I didn’t take a lot of pictures because after the first day I got just very annoyed with it. Let’s hope sony fixes the each of use for their next release of this camera, it has a lot of potential but I would not recommend the camera to a friend.

Today I’ve used my iPad for 12 days and I love it even more then I did the first day.

I love catching up with my RSS feeds, reading and replying to e-mails, writing blogposts and booking a hotel. The size of the screen makes it a great device for presenting pictures and watching series or movies streamed from my MBP.

Typing on the ipad is actually pretty good, you can’t use your regular typing position but typing with 6 fingers works very well. It’s just an awesome device to use all the time and everywhere.

But there are a few small things that annoy me. First of all Apple should have included some way to prop up the iPad when resting it in your lap or putting it on the table to type with 2 hands. Now I’m always looking for a way to elevate it a bit and most of the time I’m putting my wallet under it, because that’s the perfect height and doesn’t slip. But at the moment I did not find any great case yet. I would love the DODO case but they are backordered for 4 to 6 weeks and they are missing a nice height for watching movies

Another annoying thing is that at the moment there is no Twitter client that I like and definitely no app that satisfies my needs for google reader, but off course there’s an app for that at least over time there will.

But the most annoying thing is taking it out of your bag in Belgium. once you take it out to usef it, there’s always somebody who starts saying that there are better things to use, you can’t do this or that,… Basically I like my iPad, it serves the purpose where I bought it for, so just let me use it and don’t think I’m taking it out to brag, I just want to use it.

Now I’m going to stop this blogpost so I can watch chase jarvis live