Quality & Size Options

The NX10 offers four image size options when shooting JPEGs in the 3:2 aspect ratio, and another four sizes in 16:9 mode. There is also a 1.4-megapixel size used only in reduced-resolution burst mode.

There are three JPEG compression settings, Super Fine, Fine and Normal. RAW file shooting is supported, either alone or paired with a JPEG at any of the three available compression settings.

Dynamic Range (5.73)

Our dynamic range testing did not go well for the NX10. Here we’re testing the camera’s ability to maintain detail in both bright and dark areas of a high-contrast scene. The dynamic range inevitably decreases as ISO levels increase, but the NX10 displayed mediocre results even at the ISO 100 and 200 levels, and faded from there. The only bright spot for Samsung here: the Micro Four Thirds cameras fared even worse. More on how we test dynamic range.

Comparing cameras at the ISO 200 level, we find the NX10 with a 5.62-stop range, barely ahead of the Panasonic GF1 and far behind the other APS-C cameras.

As seen in the following chart, there’s a significant gap between the top performers and the also-rans in this category.

Image Stabilization (4.46)

The optical image stabilization system didn’t make much difference, but on the plus side it improved rather than hurt sharpness at nearly every shutter speed (IS often impairs results at higher speeds). More on how we test image stabilization.

The Samsung NX10 uses lens-based image stabilization. Of the three initially available lenses, the kit 18-55mm and the 50-200mm telephoto include stabilization, the 30mm pancake does not. Two stabilization modes are available, one which kicks in when the shutter is pressed, the other which is applied continuously. We used the first, which uses less battery power.

In our low shake testing, we found modest resolution gains at most speeds, both when the camera was moving horizontally and when it was moving vertically.

When we cranked up the level of shake to the point you might see if you were moving around while shooting, the improvement is more noticeable, particularly in the range between 1/125 second and 1/60 second.

Image Stabilization Comparison Table			Expand
	Low Shake IS Off	Low Shake IS On	High Shake IS Off	High Shake IS On
1/500
1/250
1/125
1/60
1/30
1/15
1/8

Among our comparison cameras, only the Olympus E-P1, with its in-camera stabilization system, posted particularly strong results here, with the NX10 score about the same as the others in the group.

The following table offers representative same-size crops taken from our test images, to provide a visual demonstration of the sharpness improvement we experienced. These crops are taken from the horizontal shake testing, at both low and high shake levels.