Let's see what the Samsung NX1 is REALLY capable of - shooting 4K in sunny Lisbon

[Andrew Reid]

 

Download the 4K original here

NX1 is in stock at B&H ($1499)

The light in Berlin is dreary during winter, so I took the NX1 off for a break in the Portuguese city of Lisbon last week. This place has the best weather in Europe and the best light. A magical place.

It gave me a perfect chance to get under the skin of the NX1 - and see just what it can do in the real world.

Read the full article here

[Hitfabryk]

Thanks for posting, really good usefull info. :)

[miketurner]

Andrew thanks for posting this!  I'm really looking forward to your future tests once you get the Atomos Shogun and comparing the 4K output between the A7S, GH4 and NX1.  Really appreciate all the work you do on your blog! It's quite a service!  :)

[cjwilliams0013]

Great review! love the color in the footage, its really stunning. I am excited to get mine in Jan. It will be interesting to see what images it will produce once its compatible with the Shogun. 

[Vesku]

Thanks for review.

 

GH4 needs iso100 video mode to compete NX1 noiseless results. I hope Panasonic will do it in FW update.

[richg101]

wonderful images.  Personally I think just about any camera would deliver lush things with that 135mm f2 you used on some of the key shots in combination with your photographic skills.  That oversampled sensor is capturing wonderful levels of detail and colour.    

[Oliver Daniel]

I keep brushing aside my curiosity of this camera, yet it always comes back.

Would love to see some ungraded images captured with some low contrast lenses.

Best feature of the camera is the colour. Would love to see some 120fps!

[neosushi]

Andrew, Thanks for this great article !

It is a great answer to the "lab" article. And maybe sometimes they should follow your example in taking their cameras out of their labs, into the real life. 

I really love your grading, and the colors of this Samsung. Expecting mine to come in tomorrow, already got the Samsung 16-50mm - btw I think the build quality is really good -. Can't wait to try this little beast.

I really appreciate how you honestly approached the different downsides of this camera. I wish more people would have been critical of the GH4 when it came out - for me it was a disappointment, I still believe that the GH3 is nicer in terms of colors, and is often cleaner -.

Also I think it would be fantastic if you would share with the community your grading technique - especially your filmconvert settings.

 

Thanks again, and can't to take this little camera all around the world to play with it !

Cheers ! 

 

[Andrew Reid]

Andrew, Thanks for this great article !

It is a great answer to the "lab" article. And maybe sometimes they should follow your example in taking their cameras out of their labs, into the real life.

 

Exactly! Real world shooting experience tells us a lot more!

[MattH]

Damn so I have to choose between a 720 stream and a 1gig 4k download?   Only 200mb to go!

[tupp]

Great looking footage.

 

Looks like you used a fairly high shutter speed.  Would love to see a "180-degree" shutter with some quick pans across vertical lines.

 

[majoraxis]

Great article Andrew - Great shooting as well!

Would love to see a this video without the color correction as I like the look of the  castle picture with the title "And if we want a flat image, then here it is without the grade..."

Also looking forward to your Shogun tests.

BTW anyone else like the geometric rendering of the APS-C better than the speed-boosted equivalent focal length?  When watching some of the youtube test videos from Max Yuryev, I believe that a straight APS-C lens and sensor is more pleasing than the slightly barrel distortion of the GH4 and Speedbooster... or maybe something else is causing this up look.

[Mozim]

That's some beautiful footage. Thanks for sharing! Even though I try not to, I think I'll seriously have to consider this camera. This is better than anything that I've seen coming from an A7s or a GH4 - not that I've seen everything though... It's funny though, some shots, the ones without any motion, do look like they're still frames because there is no visible noise whatsoever. 

How does the 1080p mode compare to other 1080p cameras under normal shooting conditions? Is it on par with, let's say, the GH3? I don't expect the Samsung 1080p to beat the Sony A7s 1080p but if it's on par with the GH3/G6 BUT offers 120fps AND offers 4K shooting at normal frame rates... well in that case I think I've found my next camera. 

 

[miguel]

"Canon like colours" with GH4 resolution. That's a great image.

I know I'm being petty, but I wish they would put some thought on the emotional-design of the thing. It looks too much like a home appliance...

[zenpmd]

Some great observations there Andrew. Much more balance:

"Samsung are one of the largest semiconductors manufacturers in the world with one of the biggest investments in chip design R&D. It shows with the NX1. I can’t stress enough how different this camera is under the hood to a high end Canon or Nikon DSLR. As cameras move from the optical / photographic era to the computing era this advantage is going to become more and more pertinent.

Some of the technology utilised here is simply not found on anything else it competes with. Unless Samsung set up a supply chain to Canon & Nikon they are going to reap the rewards for a very long time on future cameras of such bespoke tech. There’s little evidence at the moment that Canon & Nikon are on a level playing field when it comes to semiconductors. In my view they’re condemned to buying off the shelf hardware and sensors for future cameras just to stay competitive and gone will be any kind of bespoke image quality advantage which Canon historically have enjoyed with their CMOS sensors prior to the 5D Mark III. Canon’s recent remarks that they will simply use whatever sensor is best, no matter who makes it, hints that their management are resigned to this fate anyway."

I've long been a big believer in Samsung. So big and so much money and capable of so much.

[Arthur Nguyen]

I don't mean this to be offensive, but I apologize if it ends up that way - I am extremely relieved that the issue of crushed blacks that were seen by some in your Sigma 35mm NX1 article are a product of color grading and not the raw output of the camera!  This camera has stunning dynamic range for its price.

[Caleb Rasak]

Beautiful images from this camera. I love it when companies stir up the industry. Sadly I dont think this will be a popular camera just due to the name Samsung. Professionals dont hear that name and think camera. They think smart phone or TV. BTW this is my favorite grade you have done. Beautiful contrast between colors. 

[filmersblog]

The conclusion is that I want to move to Lisbon 

[learningcameras]

I don't see 3840 x 2160 in 24p...just 30p. What's up with that? 

Also, if you don't own a Mac, I have had issues transcoding to prores just so you guys know. I'm trying to find some PC options for using ProRes or what the best format should be for PC users needing 4k video formats. Adobe Premiere supports Prores just fine on the PC which is why I wanted to use it. 

[crypt5]

You should really avoid crapware like Wondershare and DVDFab. While easy to use, they neglect quality to improve performance. In addition, as they cater to general video types, the internal encoder options these front-end applications use may not suit your type of video and decrease quality. 

A lot of these programs by default will use gpu acceleration to decode video and sometimes to encode as well, which should be avoided at all costs. This video acceleration (usually h264/vc1 and mpeg2) implemented into AMD, Nvidia and Intel gpu drivers is of "ok" quality, and it differs between gpus. In a simple progressive AVC 1080p decode, one test I saw showed AMD gpus providing a different quality output everytime.

What I recommend for the fokes converting video is to get to know your codec. Have a go at some open source or proprietary command line programs that are available. They usually allow near-direct access to the libraries "behind the scenes" in applications previously mentioned.

Free and open source, I personally recommend using ffmpeg to decode the video and streaming it to x264 with your own custom encoding options. Both ffmpeg and x264 are applications which are available on PC, Mac, Linux, and whatever else you can build it on.

I do believe ffmpeg can encode to ProRes variants which might be useful for someone who owns a NX1 because of its H265 decoder.