Samsung GX 1S

Surprisingly, we found the camera’s aperture and shutter speed-priority modes consistently underexposed images by over a stop. This was true even in predominantly dark-toned scenes. When compared to an incident reading, the meter consistently required another stop or two.

Metering (6.75)
The GX-1S's 3 metering patterns are multi-zone, center-weighted, and spot. Multi-zone is standard for automated shooting. It evaluates and compares luminance in 16 areas across the frame in order to settle on a final exposure. The system should be able to account for backlighting and other difficult metering conditions. We found that the GX-1S retained detail in backlit subjects when using multi-zone metering, but that it generally compromised too much. The subject was still too dark, and the background retained detail we didn't care about. Setting the exposure manually, we would have gone one way or the other.

The Spot zone is a tight spot at the center of the frame and is most useful for manual shooting. It worked well and corresponded closely with the spot indicator in the viewfinder. The Center-weighted mode worked fine, and might be useful for shooting landscapes and evenly-lit scenes.

White Balance (7.5)
The GX-1S offers automatic white balance in its scene modes, with presets and a manual custom white balance in manual and part-manual modes. The presets cover daylight, shade, cloudy skies, 3 types of fluorescent tubes, tungsten, and flash. It’s also possible to set manual white balances by integrating the whole frame or just the spot-metering area. We found that the outdoor presets produced pleasing color, as did the Auto setting. The manual setting works as well, though we had trouble setting it in low light.

ISO (8.75)
The GX-1S offers ISOs from 200 to 3200, in full EV increments. High ISOs are very grainy, and the GX-1S offers 2 utilities to remind the user of that. A custom setting allows the user to limit the ISO range in Auto mode, while another lights up a warning in the viewfinder when the camera is set to high ISOs. It would have also been nice if a lower minimum sensitivity setting was included to afford users a bit more control over aperture in bright daylight conditions.

Shutter Speed (7.75)
The GX-1S's shutter runs from 30 seconds to 1/4000, plus Bulb. Bulb, for time exposures, is treated as a separate exposure mode rather than a shutter speed. The maximum flash sync on the GX-1S is 1/180 of a second.

Aperture (6.0)
The GX-1S adjusts apertures in either 1/2 or 1/3-stop increments. The kit lens has a maximum aperture of f/3.5 at 18mm and 5.6 at 55mm. Many users will find the aperture range limiting in low light. Not only will it drive up the usable ISO and require longer shutter speeds, it decreases the effectiveness of the autofocus system and makes manual focus and composition more difficult.