Samsung EX1 night shots (Kuching Waterfront at night)

See also: Samsung EX1 Advanced Compact

These photos were taken last year but am only now posting them to blog. Hope it’s not too late for anyone considering this camera. There’s no replacement yet from Samsung and the EX1 is the company’s only advanced compact model at the moment.

Click on the thumbnails for larger size. All EXIF data has been retained; unfortunately, due to my blazingly fast third world “narrowband”, I am unable to upload any full sized photos.

So what do I think about this camera after using it for a few times?

Pros:
- Good low light performance.
- Good build quality (nice heft and feel)
- Good photo quality especially in good light
- External manual controls and dials
- Very “fast” and versatile lens that starts at 24mm (35mm equivalent)
- Even at its longest end, lens is still considered fast (wide aperture of f/2.4)
- Excellent AMOLED articulating display
- Good macro performance (flash throttles down nicely, power can also be manually adjusted)
- Effective Smart Range mode (increases dynamic range)
- Highly customizable

Cons:
- Questionable quality control (mode dial problems on this unit, read about it elsewhere on the internet so looks like it’s not an isolated problem - modes switch by themselves especially when set at P-mode on the dial)
- AMOLED screen is beautiful but gives you the impression that your photos are sharper and more saturated than they really are. Will not appear same once downloaded to your computer.
- Tethered lens cap is nice but will often get tangled up especially when you have the screen flipped out
- Low light images quite noisy starting at ISO400. Dark areas are particularly ugly.
- Image stabilization not really that effective, I find 1/20s to the be slowest ideal speed, slower than that and I get lots of blurry or soft photos (I guess I’m so used to shooting at speeds as slow as 1/6s and getting nice usable images on DSLRs).
- Video mode very basic and no HD video
- No in-camera panorama mode

I like it overall and wouldn’t hesitate to use it as my only camera when traveling light IF it didn’t have that first problem mentioned above (modes jumping about or mode selection screens/windows randomly popping up). If you can get a problem-free EX1 (aka TL500) at bargain bin prices, why not?

Gallery:

Sarawak Tourism Complex (Old Court House) + Magna Carta Restaurant

Sarawak Tourism Complex (Old Court House)

Sarawak Tourism Complex (Old Court House) + Clock

Charles Brooke Memorial


Square Tower + Sarawak DUN in the background

Decent lowlight performance (hand held, slow shutter speed)

DUN and Square Tower reflected in still water (fountains turned off)

Square Tower

Square Tower

Viewing tower + Astana in background

Sarawak State Legislative Assembly building, better known as the DUN (Dewan Undangan Negeri) building.

Kuching city skyline + Sarawak River

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Roof of the DUN building. Shaped like a terendak (hat). This was shot at about 1/20s and I find that speed to be the ideal hand held speed for this camera, produces decently sharp results. I find that the image stabilizer on the camera isn’t really that effective.

Souvenir shop on the righ

Sarawak Tourism complex + Charles Brooke Memorial

See also: Samsung EX1 Advanced Compact

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