Comments on: Review – Samsung NX10, Part 1: First Impressions

By: Miserere

Miserere — Thu, 06 May 2010 23:50:09 +0000

Do you mean the Auto EV Compensation setting? Nope, that doesn’t do anything.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 06 May 2010 19:13:10 +0000

Haven’t tried it but the auto exposure correction custom function won’t fix that TAv scenario?

The biggest Pentax firmware screw-up in my mind was fixed with K10D; on the earlier 6mp bodies like my *ist DS2 use of exposure comp would basically disable Auto ISO, force it to ISO 200 (with of course no indication it was doing so!). These cameras also offered no indication what auto ISO was doing until after the shot was taken, except that it could put a ‘ISO’ warning indicator in the viewfinder once ISO was >= a specified level.

By: Miserere

Miserere — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:32:38 +0000

Andrew, that might be the case, that some cameras don’t measure distance to high precision, but they still need to know distance if they have (or can mount) a flash in order to calculate proper exposure. I imagine most cameras have logarithmic precision, meaning they measure distances in inches up to a foot or two, then in 1/2 feet up to 10 feet, then in feet up to 20-30 feet, then in tens (or fives) of feet up to maybe 60-70 feet, and then just call it a day with infinity for anything further.

In any case, if today’s cameras don’t give us zone focusing automatically, it’s not because of some insurmountable technological chasm, but because the camera companies don’t want to. And I’m not even calling them evil for not doing it, I think they’re just out of touch with photographers and don’t know that this might be a feature we want (even though the internet is full of comments about it). It’s just like TAv in Pentax cameras overexposing once you hit the lowest ISO; 3 generations of cameras with TAv and they still haven’t fixed this problem, which is done in (literally) a few lines of code.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 06 May 2010 15:13:53 +0000

Well they *could* have had distance markings despite focus-by-wire. It just couldn’t have been printed on the focus ring–they would have needed a little window for markings on the tube that actually changes position during focusing–like pretty much any (decently-made) lens that has a focusing ring that doesn’t rotate during autofocus. And you’re right, hyperfocal *should* be standard fare in focus modes. Pentax compacts have ‘PF’ (pan focus), I suspect this is sort of like hyperfocal but details of how it actually works are not disclosed. To do either hyperfocal/zone focusing or supply distance information with the VF/LCD data, you’d need pretty good distance information supplied by the lens. Not sure that all mounts/lenses are equal in this regard–I suspect some may not return the distance in feet/meters but supply a courser close/medium/far type indicator, or perhaps supply distance in steps…though I’ve been wrong before.

By: Miserere

Miserere — Tue, 04 May 2010 16:02:53 +0000

I didn’t want to make it too obvious

Neither of those cameras include focus distance on LCD/EVF. Very annoying! Because the lenses are focus-by-wire, none of them (including primes) have a distance scale. I feel a bit orphaned without one, but I find ways around it. I believe this is one of the major shortcomings of ALL camera manufacturers these days, not including zone focusing as an option via a menu, nor automatic hyperfocal focusing as an auto-focus mode.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 04 May 2010 15:20:21 +0000

No caption “Crack of Dawn” for that last sample image?

Do NX10 or EPL-1 include focused subject distance on their LCDs or in viewfinder? I notice that neither of their kit lenses include distance markings.