Samsung NX10

Focal length: 18mm
Aperture: f/6.7
Shutter: 1/125
ISO: 100

Taken in Davis Square in Somerville, MA on a sunny lunch hour, using vivid mode. There is very good image detail from edge to edge, though the lens distortion is clearly visible on the flagpole, and there is some chromatic aberration in the corner branches.

Focal length: 55mm
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter: 1/8
ISO: 200

Shot on a tripod, using automatic white balance in neutral mode. Sharpness is generally impressive, with only a bit of softening in the corners.

Focal length: 37mm
Aperture: f/11
Shutter: 0.8
ISO: 3200

Shot in aperture priority mode under low 20 lux illumination, at the camera’s maximum ISO, using multi metering and 1 EV of exposure compensation. The large image at left was taken with noise reduction turned off. There’s quite a lot of fine detail, and while there is plenty of image noise as well, the photo looks OK at small sizes. In the small samples below, we’ve paired same-size crops taken from this photo beside crops from another version, taken with high ISO noise reduction turned on. There is significant smoothing of the noisy textures, with an acceptable effect on image detail.

Focal length: 40mm
Aperture: f/11
Shutter: 1/90
ISO: 100

We decided to let the camera’s Smart Auto mode do the thinking for us on this shot, with good results (it chose the outdoor landscape setting). We like the sharp detail, the blurred background and the subtle color gradation. However, these real flowers have an artificial look to them, thanks to the overly saturated colors.

Focal length: 55mm
Aperture: f/11
Shutter: 1/259
ISO: 400

Shot in program mode with evaluative metering in the landscape picture mode (which slightly boosts saturation, sharpness and contrast), this shot came out well for the most part. Edge to edge sharpness is very good, the white ducks are appropriately white using auto WB, and we can’t find a sign of chromatic aberration. The most notable flaw is the blown-out duck backs, which lose any feather detail.

Focal length: 55mm
Aperture: f/10
Shutter: 1/160
ISO: 200

This program mode shot was taken using the vivid picture wizard setting, to bring up the intense red, green and gold colors we saw (the setting had the greatest effect on the red bricks). There’s a little softness at the outer edges, and some loss of detail in the white window frame, but the NX10 produced a nicely balanced image here.