*Steve Makris is a technology expert who does a weekly Tech Talk segment during Edmonton’s Sunday Morning News. You can watch his segment above.
Good morning folks, today on the Global Sunday Morning News, I showed one of the best wirelessly-connected quality cameras in the market, the Samsung NX30, $999.99 with standard W/18-55 III OIS lens.
Samsung has outdone itself with a third generation top tier premium 20.3 megapixel digital mirrorless, interchangeable lens camera that not only rivals the quality of similar type camera competitors, but prosumer DSLR models as well.
You can check out my initial review in an earlier blog ,but after having recently shot more than 6,000 frames in Turkey, Greece and Toronto. I wanted to share some shooting tips and show how a well-connected and designed camera like the NX30 works.
-Shoot from low angles to catch water reflections. The photo of the large stone Medusa head lying on its side in the dark cistern water reservoirs below Istanbul was possible with the tilting viewfinder eyepiece for composing in a small space.
-Take a chance for great pictures and be prepared to move fast. One of my favourites, a sarcophagus on cliff-edge of seemingly bright white snow in Pamukkale, Turkey is actually amid calcium deposits, thousands of years old. I only had three minutes to cross the “no-entry” sign, for a 100-metre dash, shoot on the easily accessible auto-bracket mode which quickly takes three differently exposed frames of challenging scenes, like the bright whites here. Why three minutes? That’s how long it took security to see me on their video cameras and scramble to where I was. A tip from my excellent tour guide from www.tours4Turkey.com
-Challenge yourself for an impossible photo. My most challenging photo ever was at dusk near the Temple of Hephaistos at Thision under the Acropolis in Athens. The entry gates were closed so I found a suitable spot on top of the rock wall and climbed on the steel grated fence. I stuck my arm as high as I could with the NX30 mounted on my monopod on self-timer, easily accessible by a selector lever. The bright 3″ OLED swivel display allowed me to compose. I used Night Mode to expose my favourite of the more than 6,000 photos I shot.
-Taking pictures of people in public in a foreign country is always challenging. These images of the differing ways Turkish women dress were possible with the NX30 fast hybrid autofocus using a 50-200mm OIS zoom tele. The 9 fps sequential shooting captured every movement of fast moving subjects.
-Revisiting a famous landmark like Aghia Sofia in Istanbul after sunset will reward you with an exquisitely lit photo at dusk. The standard kit 18-55 lens was used.
-The compact fast super-wide lens, like the 16mm f 2.4 pancake with image stabilization on, captured the ever-impressive underground cisterns in Istanbul, hand held.
-Look for details details, details and shoot tight, tight, tight. The outdoor mosaic at Ephesus Turkey was shot with the kit lens at 55 mm.
-Look for unusual shooting vantages around you. A small open window on the second floor of Hagia Sophia, first noticed by Vicky, provided a great view of its foreground domes, centred by the nearby Blue Mosque domes.
Samsung now has 20 NX interchangeable lenses. Some have exactly the same zoom range but are designed for different users. For example, the large and heavy 16-50mm f2-f2.8 ED $1,200 zoom shoots superbly sharp images without a flash, while the compact f3.5-5.6 motor zoom lens for about a quarter of the price, lets in one quarter of the light compared to its sibling, but is feather light.
Interestingly, I found the 16 mm pancake and the above two zooms to produce strikingly similar high quality photos.
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CONNECTIVITY
As for connectivity, I was able to do the following with the NX30 and accompanying Note 3, as well as taking advantage of WiFi hotspots. How to share and save your travel photos on the fly:
-Automatically save pictures on my Note 3 as I shot, a great instant backup.
-Select and transfer specific images from camera to the Note 3 by simply using NFC tapping and MobileLink.
-Control the camera, view and shoot using the screen on my Note 3.
-Automatically backup and save photos and videos to a dedicated WiFi PC.
-Email a photo to anyone.
-Upload to Facebook, Picasa, YouTube, Dropbox or Flickr, Samsung Link Web Storage.
-Also used the NX30 as a baby monitor after downloading the Samsung Home Monitor on the Note 3.
Lots of possibilities here, no?
-The NX30 full HD 1080p video, external mike and built-in 28 mbps transfer bit rate HDMI connector brought out professional quality video from the scene to your TV screen.
Check out the new NX30, shipping in stores now at a retailer near you.
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