Uh - Oh - Samsung NX1 Test Films

[Ed_David]

 

 

 

Thank you Andrew for telling the world about this camera!

****UPDATE: CRITICSM addressed! And a lot of criticism. I guess "Uh-Oh" won't get me a cinematography Oscar! 
I should have exported as 4k pro res hq files, not 1080p pro res files - may explain Moire on some shots. Opps. Also shooting at 4096x2160- only option I have - doesn't give me the option to shoot at 3840x2160 at anything other than 30p - maybe NTSC version so messes it? In Pal I can shoot at 3840 x 2160 but I do like 24p more than 25p. and that's the only option.

Let's address criticisms:
1. the shutter, oh god the shutter! Hey, it doesn't look any worse than the Sony A7S in full frame mode or the Canon 5d Mark II - how do we get around this - same technique - shoot with a baseplate and make the camera a little bulkier. You can still work with Jello - just work around it.

2. the moire! oh the moire. probably because of downconvert I did in wondershare - should have kept it 4k files and downconverted via resolve. I will shoot some resolution charts to see. Wondershare is a consumer-y transocding program. So I don't have that much faith in it.

3. the blacks are too black! WHY? --This is my style. I like blacks that are black. Not raised black levels. I like rich blacks. Did they clip? I will go back into resolve and check and redo. Yes okay it's too black. Oh well. I got carried away. So sue me - this is a simple test video, I'll regrade once I'm done putting out fires on camera nerd forums.

4. The dynamic range is garbage - garbage. This is my choice. Again I'll post it ungraded. There is about the same dynamic range judging by my informal eyes as the Red Epic. 12-13 stops. Andrew as EOSHD says the camera may eventually get 14 stops because that's what it can do in stills mode. So there is hope, if you like HDR like 14 stops footage which to me I don't like - I personally think too much dynamic range looks CARTOONY. But that's just me.

5. The blow out on the globe! OH MY GOD THE BLOW OUT - I probably didn't protect for the highlights. If I had a light meter the direct insane sun hitting the globe I would rate at f/32 and the globe underexposed parts at 1/4 at 400 ISO. What is the NX1's native ISO? Does anyone know?

H.265. It is almost as good as Pro Res 444 but at 1% of the size. 
eoshd.com/2013/11/new-h-265-codec-test-prores-4444-quality-1-file-size/

The Samsung NX1 is a $1500 dslr that can record 4k to H.265 - pretty much the most important video compression algorithm of the past decade. This is what the HBO geek comedy Silicon Valley I think is kind of about, in an indirect way.

Thanks to Andrew Reid and EOSHD.com for telling me about this camera, I bought this little plastic bombshell. I bought it because of him.

I used Wondershare to convert to Pro Res HQ and then took into resolve and applied a Impulz Slog lut 200T tungsten FPE to it, lowered contrast, and messed with the gamma curve. I screwed up on this app. Oh well.

I shot using these settings:

1. Color - kept at default
2. Saturation - Minus 3
3. Sharpness - Minus 10
4. Contrast - Minus 10
5. Hue - 0 - kept at default.
White balance: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

Lens: Nikon Nikkon AIS 35mm F/2 - old manual lens - work-horse.

I used Cloudy white balance which was dumb - everything was too warm, but not hard to fix in post at all - just slide in back down to that middle dot thingy.

I shot a lot at 100 ISO because I didn't have any ND - and also up to 400 ISO.

All the shots looked pretty damn good and clean so I could have gone up to like 800.
At first the "auto brightness" was on that changed brightness

I used neatvideo to sharpen up the footage - I love how neat video sharpens footage - looks so good and natural.

My conclusion:
This is basically looking like stuff I can get out of the Red Epic Dragon in terms of image fidelity . I mean, image and color and contrast wise. I use the Red Epic a lot and own 2 Red One MXs that I found in a dumpster - and this camera - the image looks better in some ways - well at least pretty much as good. I need to use charts but highlight handling and saturation feels better at this moment, in my gut.

Of course - the shutter - rolling shutter - it looks pretty bad. Pretty pretty pretty bad. Oh well. Get one of those stabilizer thingies. It looks as bad as the Sony A7S in full frame mode and as bad as the 5 D Mark II. But again, it's $1600. You get what you pay for. Smoke em if you got them. So it's a $1600 camera to my super informal test that feels on par with a $40k-$60k camera. Uh oh.

H.265 right now you have to use Wondershare to convert - they make it for mac and pc. Soon probably all NLE and Resolve and the sort will probably have h.265 as an option.

This camera is amazing. From Samsung - completely out of the blue. If you read Andrew Reid's reports on the sensor and the technology on EOSHD.com you'll see how groundbreaking this little plastic camera is.

[tupp]

Thanks for the info and the video, and especially for the whip pans of the books.  Definite rolling shutter.

By the way, I think ffmpeg decodes h265, which could mean that Handbrake will also convert the codec.  Not sure how well the ffmpeg decoder performs.

 

[jcs]

Looks pretty good Ed, nice color, not like Canon perhaps more like Nikon. Very high contrast- blacks are very black, can it be boosted in-camera? If not, what happens if boosted in post (noise-wise)? From your and Andrew's examples, blues (the sky) appear a bit unusual (too little red  / too much green). Would be helpful to see more skintones, especially the same shots compared to other cameras. Perhaps the color issues are related to LUTs- helpful to see ungraded footage from the camera compared to other cameras.

H.265 is a lot more advanced than H.264- hopefully a GPU decoder can handle it in real-time for direct NLE editing. For the near future it would be to Samsung's advantage to update the firmware with double the bitrate H.264 to provide equivalent quality to H.265 and allow direct editing of footage.

[Guest]

Nice stuff as always Ed. The shots of yourself in the mirror looked very stable. Was it all shot with the 35mm AI-S?

Most of my lenses are AI-S primes but I bought the AF-D version of the 35mm f2 because reports of the AI-S are usually lukewarm. I hate the focus ring on the AF-D though and you can't ever use it wide open because of bad CA. How do you like your AI-S 35mm? It seems pretty decent here from what I can tell. Nikkor AI focus rings are reason enough to shoot video with them all the time regardless of glass quality ...

[SleepyWill]

I've seen some less great footage when you have a lot of the screen in focus - but then I'm stuck away from my computer right now and can only view this over public wifi on a surface pro 2, not the finest way to watch youtube! Any chance we could confirm or debunk this? This is what I saw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdoUTiG8XOM, look at the trees at 0:16ish (I'm on a ward, I can't turn up the volume either so maybe the guy explains this?). I'm guessing the new codec uses out of focus areas to heavily compress, maybe?

[Oliver Daniel]

Hi Ed! This is exactly the kind if footage I've been waiting to see! So thank you for sharing. 

The majority of the stuff shot with this camera on the web is very poor, so I'm glad to see something much better! 

When the shot of the ladies face, it jumped out at me. Those skintones are incredible. There's something very beautiful about the colour. Having been used to a GH3 for two years, it pales on comparison. 

I've been very curious about this camera and my interest has peaked. In my company we are currently discussing our next purchases and the NX1, A7S and Shogun are on the list. 

Let me be cheeky and ask you to share more!  

 

[Mozim]

Thanks for sharing the video Ed!

I really like what I'm seeing. I can't say what exactly it is, but I like this video (and the Lisbon video Andrew posted) more than anything I've seen from the A7s or GH4. 

Rolling Shutter does look pretty bad, so the camera shouldn't really be used for certain shots. 

I noticed that there's a lot of micro jittering going on. Is that (partly) due to the rolling shutter and sensor readout speed, too? Or is it simply because it was shot handheld without a rig/cage/additional weight and/or a lens without optical stabilization? 

[/p/]

Is it plastic?

[Ed_David]

It feels exactly like the 7D - except lighter.  It feels really good - like you can drop it a lot.  It also has a very simple menu system which is kind of a relief after the A7S's menu system that reminds me of being back in law school.  

The GH4 has worse highlight handling - it blows out like video.  This is smoother.  And I haven't done a formal test, but the NX1 seems to have less noise and compression artifacts than the A7S which can get really noisy in the highlights and shadows.  It just feels more robust.

Actually I like the image more than out of the Sony FS7 - which is a lot more expensive.  But that's just my gut.  And really, I need to do a side by side with the Red Epic and Red One MX - I have a feeling in my heart, besides rolling shutter jello issues it would cut pretty darn close to Red footage.

 

 

[ESGI Media]

There is a firmware update available :-)

[v1.10]
1. Added Sort by Oldest / Latest in the Playback menu
2. Added View Continuous Shots (Fold / Unfold) in the Playback menu
3. Added AF Start and AF Start + Lock in the AF On sub menu under Key Mapping
4. Added Custom Wheel EVC (Exposure Value Compensation) option in the Key Mapping menu
5. Overall color reproduction improvement
6. General improvement in the image quality of DCI 4K(4096x2160) video
7. Image quality improvement in white balance when Smart Range+ Mode is enabled
8. Improvement in long exposure noise reduction when capturing in RAW
9. Improved AF performance:
a. Added AF Release Priority function (Auto/Accuracy Priority/ Shooting Speed Priority).
b. Improved AF performance in low light situations
c. Improved AF performance in CAF & Multi area AF modes
10. Overall wireless strobe sync improvement
11. Other bugs are fixed

This is the Samsung UK download link.
https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/model/EV-NX1ZZZBZBGB

[neosushi]

Can't wait for a review of those fixes  

Should have mine on monday - don't know if it will come with the update...

[/p/]

That's a pretty epic firmware upgrade.. Genuinely impressed with Samsung.

I'd buy this camera IF it had IBIS.. But unfortunately.. As appealing as the image may be, even with 4k I 1. Like shooting handheld 2. Don't want to buy Samsung lenses and 3. Don't have any Canon IS lenses to adapt (not even sure if it can adapt Canon lenses anyway)..

I DID buy E-Mount lenses for my a7S since it doesn't have IBIS.. And while I love the a7S I am eagerly anticipating a version with internal 4k + IBIS for my manual lenses. 

Still really impressed with Samsung though, like their philosophy and hope they keep pushing forward.

[Amook]

So I had a nx1 for a week before someone stole it out of the back of my car. I really liked the camera and the images. I was mostly using the camera hand held and had a hard time wight he rolling shutter in 4k. I'm wondering if the samsung 16-50 S would be a big improvement or not. I really like shooting with the sigma 18-35 but don't think I could get away with hand holding as much as i'd like. I'd appreciate anyone has any experience with a image stabilized lens.

[andy lee]

welcome to the forum Amook

 

try a shoulder rig , I use one all the time for hand held work

[Amook]

I know a shoulder rig would help and I have one, but I'm wondering about how much the stabilization from the samsung lens would help if I don't have a rig with me.  

[j.f.r.]

Holy Micro Jitters Batman..........

 

Dynamic range looks really poor and the Blacks look burnt....... Why such shock value thread......

Honestly looks very average and dslr like, colors are poor as well.

[Oliver Daniel]

I am yet to see any footage of the camera where the blacks haven't been very crushed in post or in camera, it's difficult to see what the DR is like. Ed's footage is the best I've seen for my taste, although still very very contrasty  (which is totally fine btw). 

I want to rent one to try out all this myself but no one is!!  

[gatopardo]

 

[Vesku]

 

​

Was the OIS OFF. Looks like lots of hand shake even in wide shots.

[Ed_David]

new firmware is on my nx1 - was so simple to install.  It has enabled 6k IMAX recording and global shutter and 14 444 pro res files and slo mo up to 400,000 FPS and made the camera say "nice shot" everytime I get a good shot.  I highly recommend upgrading.