I recently bought a Samsung Nx1100 20mp Aps-c digital camera so in a new video on my YouTube channel I thought I would share my thoughts on this camera from 2013 and how it holds up over 10 years later, watch the video below or read on for more info.
Quick back story on why and how I came to buy this camera. Well I like going to car boot sales there are a few reasons one is to get some bargains, though I’m always on the lookout for retro digital cameras as I buy ones for just a few pound and sell for a profit on ebay, so on a sale from a couple that are always at this one car boot sale in curdbough just outside of Lichfield selling home made cakes etc, they also had for sale a Samsung Nx1100 Aps-c digital camera with 2 lenses, they wanted £50 , was unsure, but went back to my camper as had left phone in there, and checked the price and thought yes could make a profit, so went back and got it. Though I didn’t get this directly to sell as I wanted a reasonable spare camera to use to take the ebay photos.
The condition of the camera even though it’s white was really good, came in an official Samsung case though this had seen better days, the camera came with 20-50mm & 50-200mm lenses. The item had no power so once got back to my camera popped a USB cable in thinking it would charge the battery, but no lights, so at this time was thing I had brought a faulty cam,era and anyone that buys electrical items off car boots that’s the chance you take , but in the bag was the mains charger so took the battery out an put into the charger , luckily I have a inverter on my electrical setup in camper and the battery started to charge, so now panic over. That day I went off to Shugborough hall, for another video see below and tested that day and seemed fine.
But I really needed a better test so I did use at home for testing and compared to both of my Panasonic micro four thirds cameras the G80 and the G100, and using around the garden the quality of the Samsung couldn’t be faulted. That’s where the chasewater video comes in, properly taking out and testing all functions.
As stated this camera was released in April 2013, a year after the Nx1000 and basically they are the same camera though the Nx1100 has wifi sharing. The 20mp Aps-c sensor still hold up today. The one thing that doesn’t hold up is the screen as it can’t really see in bright sunlight and because the fixed screen i.e. can’t twist out or tilt can’t adjust angle to help out. The camera doesn’t have an EVF which to be honest on modern cameras I don’t really use but this would have helped. The camera body Is nice to hold though with my large hands would have liked bigger grip. The body is light at only 220 grams. and the lenses are light also.
There is no optical stabilization in the camera and not all lenses have stabilization like the 20-50mm but the 50-200mm does have a switch on the side to enable this. For the photos I took this didn’t really cause me a problem. The one good thing with the lenses is they have a i-fn button this enables you to set functions that you can use the focusing ring on the lens to adjust depending on mode can be shutter speed, iso, white balance aperture etc. this is nice as you don’t have any dials on the camera direct to adjust these easily.
The other neat thing is the flash unit isn’t built into the camera and is a small add on that goes in the hotshoe mount, so without it keeps the camera compact , you could also add a GPS unit to the hot shoe as well to add GPS location data to your photos, this is one thing I miss on my Panasonic and my old nikon p610 bridge camera had gps built in. You do have wifi so can transfer photos from the camera to your mobile device and even take a photo and have it directly transferred to the phone etc. The app isn’t listed in the Google play store but I was able to find the apk file and install but I found this a bit hit and miss, this is probably more to do with having newer android devices.
Well am I going to keep it probably not and the reason for buying was so could do my ebay photos most of these are done in a light tent and l;Ike the camera setup a particular way ie shutter speed , exposure , iso and white balance, which yes can set those on the camera and does take good photos, though there is no custom setting, so can’t save them for later use and still have other setting for using as a normal camera , as my office room looks out onto the back garden and I’m trying to get photos of the birds visiting and having this camera with a nice zoom lens would be the best of both worlds, but because can’t quickly pick up and change setting not worth it for what I want. Though like I have said the photo quality still holds up today and I am glad I have had it to play around with.
Is it worth you getting one, well yes in a way as long as you don’t mind the limited lens selection, as was only Samsung that produced lenses for it and remember this system is dead now, but for a small aps-c camera and you could pick one up cheap it can be a fun camera to use.
