Review Date: July 30, 2010
Category: Serious Amateur
HANDLING & FEEL
The Samsung EX1 looks professional in its all-black body (with white, silver and chrome accents). The low-key and muted design is pleasing and handsome. Overall, you get the feeling of a well-built camera.
The F1.8(W)-F2.4(T) lens is one of the fastest around though it is limited to a 3x optical zoom. The starting focal length is thankfully an ultra wide-angle 24mm and, if desired, you can even attach an optional 0.75x wide converter LWCEX01 for 18mm equivalent focal length. The 72mm tele is not much, even for use as a portrait lens, and the TL500 / EX1 is probably most at ease as a camera for street photography.
On the front of the camera, at top left of the lens is the AF-assist Light/Self-timer lamp. The oblong shape at the top of the handgrip is the Remote control sensor when you use an optional Remote control.
The Front Dial [Samsung calls it the EV Dial] allows you to select a shutter speed in Shutter-Priority and Manual modes, as well as dial in an exposure compensation when pressed in and rotated. It also allows you to navigate options in MENU, select a setting when you press the Fn key and to position the AF Frame. You can rotate the Front Dial with either your index or middle finger whichever feels more natural to you.
Startup is fast at about 1 sec. (from Power ON to LCD ready for capture, i.e. time-to-first-shot). Shot to shot times is on the slow side at about 2 sec. (@ 5 shots in 10 sec. in M mode, 1/125sec.).
In good lighting, there is no practical shutter lag and AF is fast and precise. In low lighting, AF is also fast and locks precisely. I like and find Selection AF to be really useful; it uses the OK Button and Navigation wheel, Front Dial or Direction keys to quickly position the AF Frame at 9 x 5 = 45 focus points. Unfortunately these avoid a large swatch of the screen edges. Face Detection AF can be improved: focus does not lock positively on a face but keeps shifting. Tracking AF works reasonably well, as long as your subject does not move too fast.
You can save an image in the RAW file format. It takes a long 8 sec. to write a RAW image to memory card (though you can take the next one in about 6 sec.). You can also select to save a RAW+JPEG (Super Fine, Fine or Normal). You cannot select RAW if Smart Range is ON. And there are other seemingly haphazard combinations that are also verboten for using RAW.
At Picture Size = Super Fine, a 10MP JPEG image is compressed down to anywhere between 2.5MB and 4.5MB. A RAW image occupies about 21MB.
Included in the box is a rechargeable Li-ion battery SLB-11A that can take about 240 shots (Samsung’s standard) on a fresh charge. A Travel Adapter SAC-48 uses the USB Cable to recharge a depleted battery directly in-camera in approx. 150 min. It should be pointed out that the USB Cable is ridiculously short and if you need to plug in the travel adapter to an electrical outlet on the floor, then you need to inconveniently (not to mention dangerously) rest the camera on the floor.
The Samsung EX1 uses the SD (up to 4GB) and SDHC (up to 8GB) memory card (it does not accept the SDXC card).
The top of the camera has the Shutter Release Button with the Zoom lever around it, the [Shooting] Mode dial, and the Drive mode dial on the right side of the camera. Where is the Power ON/OFF button? In the middle of the Drive mode dial. [See the POWER marking on the Drive mode dial with a little arrow pointing to the button?]
Next is the microphone (you can barely see it in this picture, see the one below with the Swivel LCD), the speaker, a hot shoe where you can attach an optional flash unit (SEF20A, SEF42A), the popup flash and Flash Release. You cannot use the popup flash when an external flash unit is attached.
The [Shooting] Mode dial has Smart Auto, PASM, Dual IS, SCN and Movie. Unfortunately, there is no Program Shift.
Dual IS turns on OIS (whether you turned it on in SETUP or not) and adjusts the ISO as required, from ISO 80 and going up to a max. ISO 800. Interestingly, the documentation notes that when using Dual IS, “the photo will be corrected optically only when taken with a light source that is brighter than fluorescent light.” I believe what this is saying is that, under a light source equivalent to fluorescent light, Dual IS will only up the ISO (i.e. DIS, Digital IS) and not engage OIS (i.e. Optical IS). When I point my camera to a dark scene, Dual IS selects ISO 800. When I point it to a bright light source, it selects ISO 80.
When using OIS (set in Menu) in P mode with ISO set to 80, IS works perfectly even with the two fluorescent bulbs on my ceiling.
| Optical Image Stabilization | |
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| Without OIS – 1/3 sec. | With OIS – 1/3 sec. |
The Drive mode dial has Single, Continuous, Self-timer (10 sec. 2 sec.), BKT. Auto Bracketing (BKT) can be set in the MENU to PSS (9 different Photo Styles), WB (3 different WB photos) or AE (3 different exposure photos).
In Continuous mode, I was able to take 43 Super Fine JPEG images in 30 sec. (@ 1.4fps) in Continuous Shooting, and it looks like you can keep shooting as long as you hold the shutter release button down. Your performance times may vary depending on your camera settings.
Both dials can conveniently be freely rotated any direction.
It takes about 3 long seconds to zoom from wide to tele and I counted approx. 7 intermediate steps. I was not able to disable digital zoom and it is so easy to slip past optical zoom into digital zoom territory.
| FUNCTIONS ACCESSIBLE BY CONTROL BUTTONS |
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| EXPOSURE COMPENSATION |
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| DISP |
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| MACRO |
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A generous 3.0-in. swivelling AMOLED display screen with a high 920k-dot resolution takes up most of the space at the back leaving barely enough space for the control buttons. It is quite easy to inadvertently change the ISO by pressing the RIGHT direction on the Navigation.
The AMOLED has a fast enough refresh rate for a smooth display. The monitor’s brightness can be adjusted in MENU. The screen gains up very well in low-light (though the image has a bluish tint).
The screen can be pulled out and swivels to point up, down and front, and can as well be closed for protection.
You can record only 640 x 480 videos @ 30fps with monaural sound. A video clip is max. 20 minutes in length. You can zoom while filming videos, but you will also clearly record the zoom noise.
TIP: In the Video Menu, set Voice to Zoom Mute. What this does is allow you to record your video as normal with sound. But as soon as you start zooming, the sound is muted so you do not record the zoom noise. It’s not a bad idea at all!
A couple of nice features: the hinged plastic Terminal door opens up wide to allow unimpeded access [don’t you hate fighting with a rubber flap?] to the HDMI port, USB and A/V port (one port used by both cables). There is a nice Battery/Card door and the battery has a latch to keep it from accidentally falling. The tripod socket at the bottom is metal; you won’t be able to change battery when the camera is on a tripod.
On my review camera, there is 22MB of Internal Memory and I was able to save seven 10MP Super Fine images in internal memory. You cannot take a RAW picture using internal memory simply because there’s not enough space.
The Samsung EX1 is nicely built with lots of controls at your fingertips. All the important functions are accessible from a dial or control button and it’s all put together so you get a digital camera that is intuitive from the moment you pick it up. The serious photographer looking for a premium digital camera will find lots to like in the handling and use of the Samsung TL500 / EX1.
Next: Samsung EX1 User’s Experience
