Samsung NX1000 Digital Camera Review

Shooting Modes

The Samsung NX1000 offers a physical mode dial built into the top plate of the camera, with settings for program auto, aperture priority, shutter priority, SMART auto 2.0, scene modes, "magic" mode, manual, lens priority, wi-fi, and movie modes. The physical mode dial is nice, as it doesn't take up much space and yet is easy to move around. We did find it could occasionally slide into a different position than we wanted, but these were few and far between.

Manual Controls

The NX1000 has a single manual control dial on the rear of the camera, which is the main control feature that separates it from the higher end NX-series cameras like the NX200/210 and NX20. You can use that dial to adjust the main exposure setting for whatever shooting mode you're on, or you can use the camera's "function" menu, which will let you move around to various options, scrolling the wheel to adjust them on the fly.

Focus

The Samsung NX1000 focuses fairly quickly in bright lighting condition, but we did notice that it struggled to find focus when contrast was low or light was limited. The NX1000 makes use of contrast detection autofocus, with the ability to hone in on a large area or a smaller point. Like most contrast detection systems, it was quite accurate when it was able to find focus.

In terms of speed the NX1000 compares well to most mirrorless cameras. It's certainly not on the same level as the Olympus E-M5, but it's serviceable quick in most situations. Even shooting with the 85mm f/1.4 lens, we found it was able to lock onto the focus point that we wanted more times than not with reasonable speed.

Recording Options

The Samsung NX1000 can shoot in three JPEG quality settings (super fine, fine, and normal), as well as RAW and RAW+JPEG. The camera has a maximum resolution of 20 megapixels, with a native aspect ratio of 3:2. The camera also has options for shooting cropped down in ratios of 16:9, or 1:1, with the ability to shoot a burst of 5-megapixel images where speed is a priority.