Some real-world NX1

M Carter · December 18, 2015

(Do let me know if I'm posting too much NX stuff… but for those on the fence…)

Did a real-world shoot and a tough one - school for severely - and I mean severely - cognitively disabled kids. No lights, rooms were not very bright, mix of flos and skylights. So, nightmare. (I'll be doing interviews with the directors and parent testimonials that will be properly lit down the line). Shot with these lenses:

Old Nikkor 80-200 2.8 AF push-pull, wide open - bought it used maybe 18 years ago, pre-D version and mojo for days;

More modern Nikkor 28-70 2.8 (aperture ring lens), wide open;

The little 16-50 Samsung kit zoom - wanted to try this for handheld stuff and mimic a steadicam using the AF and OIS.

Other than the day being sort of emotionally devastating (can't recall how may times a kid would absently take my hand if was standing still - sweet, beautiful kids who are mostly non-verbal) I was really psyched - I've never shot sony DSLR, only Canon and Nikon, but this thing is by far the best DSLR I've used. Never stuck a loupe or monitor on it, and only used the EVF outside - the OLED with peaking gave me great focus, even at 200 2.8 (I wore a pair of reading glasses when shooting). I was constantly hitting custom WB and looking for something white - very mixed lighting and it really came through, with the usual light casts to highlights that are the norm in those situations - yellow/pinks that clean up easily in post. Shot from 800 iso to 2200, mostly from 1200-2000, all day. I can't tell the shots apart today. Was not thinking of this as a low-light (or mid-light) beast, but I'll be damned - it is crazy clean up to 2200 at least ( I didn't have murky, black shadows to deal with, lighting was dim but even).

Images below -
200mm 2.8 - really pretty character, yet sharp as hell where needed - just a touch of color correction in Photoshop;
70mm 2.8 - 100% detail crop, ungraded or sharpened;
The kit lens, wide open - cleaned the highs a bit in PS.

A note about that kit zoom - I really dug it for wide & stabilized stuff… wide open. We shot out in a playground and I didn't know we'd be outdoors, so shot at F16-F22. It is a weird-ass lens stopped down like that. The sharpness is simply bizarre (and I had sharpness dialed all the way down). It's a lovely piece of glass wide, the OIS isn't earth-shaking (or earth UN-shaking) but will give warp stabilizer a head start), but the AF is freakishly, crazy useful for that sort of shooting. I see these going for as low as $140. If you don't have the big S zoom (hell, even if you do) it's a useful lens. I need to research the wide 2.8 pancake primes for these sort of shots now.

Very impressed with the camera so far. Battery life was reasonable, and I was 2nd-nature, not really thinking about anything but the image, on my first gig. Damn it Samsung, don't give up on the NX!!!