01_NX30mm F2.0

Ultra slim Pancake single lens from Samsung

SAMSUNG NX 30mm F2.0

When Samsung released their plan to develop a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera in 2008, they said they are going to use their own NX mount. Even though there was some positive opinion, but mostly were worries about the capability of Samsung to go through the competitive market. In 2010, there were 3 lenses together with the release of the NX10. They are 2 zoom lenses 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 OIS and 50-200mm F4-5.6 ED OIS and a single lens 30mm F2.0. Now they become the representative standard lenses of APS-C Sensor Mirrorless interchangeable lens camera.

These 3 lenses got attention as much as the NX10, and it’s because people could actually find out the performance of the lenses released later. Among them, the 30mm pancake lens was the best. It has the greatest performance and quality with Panasonic 20.7 lens among all the pancake lenses.

The reason of success of the NX10, 30mm F2.0 pancake lens

The 3 lenses released together with the NX10 mean something special. The 18-55 F3.5-5.6 OIS lens showed the potential of the AF performance of the mirrorless interchangeable lens camera, and the 50-200 telephoto zoom lens offered the great OIS and standard telephoto performance. And as a single lens, the 30mm F2.0 represented the lens technology of Samsung. Since the NX10 has been quite praised, these lenses would be the barometer to find out the performance of the NX lenses which will be released. Then, let’s take a look at the 30mm Pancake lens.

02_Specification & Design

Pancake single lens belonging to a standard lens

The Samsung NX 30mm F2.0 has 46.2mm of focal length on 35mm film camera, and it’s similar to the viewing angle of an eye around 50.2 degree, so it belongs to a standard lens. This focal length provides the most comfortable angle to eyes, and it has a feature to capture various subjects regardless of the usage in life.

*1.54 should be multiplied to see the focal length on 35mm.

Ultra Slim and light design

The Samsung NX 30mm F2.0 is a ultra slim single lens called a Pancake lens. However, it’s the slimmest among the pancake lenses having a motor. In design, it’s a black barrel type, and on the front, it has a focus adjustment ring. The blue ring Located on the center is the identity of Samsung lens. It might be too simple, but actually elegant like a black dress.

Size Comparison (NX30mm F2.0 vs Lumix 20mm F1.7)

Protruding barrel for Macro shot

Due to the slim size, the inside barrel is protruded when taking Macro shots. However, the filter part is not rotated, so it doesn’t bother to take shots with CPL or PL lenses. (The size of filter is 43mm.)

       Long distance                               Macro shot with the protruding barrel

Metal mount, the best mobility

The mount is made of metal, but the weight is comparably lighter than other pancake lenses. In a word, it has the best mobility of all the lenses.

It’s lighter than Pentax and Lumix pancake lenses, and considering the F value and quality, it’s almost unbelievably slim and light.

There were some unpleasing things such as the awkward look when covered by the lens cap and dusts on the bezel, due to the material. However, the dusts can be easily eliminated and doesn’t bother anything about the lens performance. For the elegance of the lens, I hope they will take care of this in the next camera.

Filter and Cap covered

Dust (Easily wiped)

Practical AF

The NX mount uses Contrast AF without a mirror, and this is generally known as worse than phase based AF. Moreover, the depth gets more shallow, the contrast AF gets slower. That’s why I didn’t expect much about the AF performance of the NX 30mm F2.0 lens. However, it was beyond my expectation.

The AF performance from a constant distance was great. Thanks to this great performance, it’s actually not inconvenient at all. However, when zooming in and out again, it became slower like other digital cameras.

Like other NX mount lenses, the 30mm F2.0 was also dramatically improved by the firmware update to 1.1 from 1.0. By reducing the moving distance of the lens to set the focus, the speed has got much faster and the accuracy has also been drastically improved.

0.25x simple Macro on 35mm equivalent

The official zooming of Macro is around 0.16x. However, it means the size of the image focused on the sensor, so it’s inappropriate to judge the performance of the Macro shooting. In order to correct this, conversion has also been applied here.

The value on 35mm equivalent is around 0.25, and it’s available to take Macro shots. In size, it can take the subject with 14.5cm x 9.5 cm of size in the full screen. This means a palm sized subject can fit the full screen. The shortest distance to shoot is 0.25m according to the specifications, but actually, around 20cm is available.

0.25x Macro might be a little insufficient for real Macro shooting. It sometimes failed to take a shot that I thought really easy. However, most of the time, it was good enough to take the shots like a flower, dull, and fashion items. I think this Macro makes the 30mm F2.0 more useful.

03_Out Focus & Usage

Useful single lens

[Background Blurring effect by using the brightness of the F2.0]　

The F2.0 doesn’t always bring users a great background blurring with the APS-C sensor. If you want stronger blurring, you firstly need to get used to the condition that makes the blurring effect stronger. Nevertheless, the F2.0 makes it slightly easier.

In order for users to understand the background blurring effect, I left the location where I took the picture(B). From the above picture, I took a shot with a tripod next to the metal post on the right. The purple flowers at the very right were the closest to the camera(A) and the yellow flowers at the very left were the farthest.

The yellow flowers located in the second from the right side were too blurred to be recognized. With around F11, it can be fully recognized. However, unless seeing it magnified, with the F8.0, the effect got very weak.

Let’s blur out the background.

In a more practical situation, the F2.0 makes the background blurring effect when taking face portrait shots. However, for body shots, it might be a bit weak. However, this weak blurring also has the effect to prevent things hiding the subject from being highlighted.

In order for a person to be outstanding with the background blurring, I recommend the half body shot. When it comes to the full body shot, there was some blurring, but not as great as the 85mm lens. However, I don’t want you just to stop taking full body shots, because the interchangeable lens camera doesn’t have to be for the background blurring. The below shots are examples of various background blurring shots by aperture conditions.

F2.0                                                 F8.0

F2.0                                                 F8.0

F2.0                                                 F8.0

The 30mm F2.0 sometimes needs an ND filter. It’s because there might be some limit of the shutter speed on a sunny day. If you take a lot of portrait shots under daylight, I hope you to consider the ND filter also.

Strength of the large sensor and standard angle

The larger the sensor, the bigger the background blurring. When it comes to a full frame body, the depth is too shallow. The below is the comparison with Panasonic Lumix Pancake lens from the same position and same aperture.

1. NX - 30mm Lens ISO100, F2.0 1/400sec.

1. G2 - 20mm Lens ISO100, F2.0 1/400sec.

The Lumix 20.7 pancake lens is 40mm on 35mm equivalent, so compared to the 30mm pancake lens from Samsung having 46mm on 35mm equivalent, it has wide angle. Besides, there’s a difference in the size of the sensor, so the NX has a narrow angle for background and strong background blurring. The G series from Panasonic is a little bright, while the NX is a little dark, so under the same condition, there’s some difference in brightness. The 30mm pancake lens should have kept the value below 2 to be freer indoors, I think.

Bright aperture

If the aperture value is small, it has advantage to take indoor shots. As a matter of fact, the reason the Samsung NX30mm F2.0 is so popular is that it can secure enough shutter speed for indoor shooting. Of course, it could have been better if it supported F1.4 or F1.8, but this lens is still very useful for photographers.

14 sunstars

The NX 30mm F2.0 has 7 blades. Like this, using the odd number of blades makes the number of the sunstars double. Under the oval type of light source, with F2.2, the light splits to the way of the long axis, and with F2.5, the light starts to split to all the directions.

This light split is very useful for night scenery shots. Moreover, tightening up the aperture for the light split, it expresses both perspective and close scenery vividly, so it’s also useful to take landscape shots.

Bokeh by aperture

Bokeh appeared as almost circular shape in F2.0, and tightening up the aperture, it gets more rectangular. The larger the F value, the smaller the size of the bokeh.

If the light source is strong, the light starts to split from F4.0, and in F22, it’s more like sunstars not bokeh. Therefore, if you intentionally make the bokeh, the aperture value has to be less than F4.0

Taking the perspective shots with the focus on the close, you can easily make the bokeh. If you shoot out the window on a rainy day from inside, it sometimes takes emotional shots naturally.

Flair in backlight and close light source

The NX30mm F2.0 has not a lot of flairs. It’s especially strong to the direct light, and even if there’s flair, it’s normally one or two flairs. On the other hand, when the light source is in backlight or close, the flair called Shower Ghost occurs.

Shower Ghost means the beam of lights like a shower. The reason of the Shower Ghost is that the Samsung NX 30mm F2.0 makes flair far from the light source.

The Shower Ghost was found from other lenses, and if it’s short, it’s less affected by the light source out of the frame and the flair around the light source is stronger. When it comes to the NX 30mm F2.0, it keeps strong flair from showing up around the light source, and instead the effect goes farther, so we can’t say which one is better. You’d better understand it as a feature of the lenses.

More useful for diligent people

The angle 50.2” of the 30mm pancake lens is not appropriate for landscape shots. That’s why it’s normally used to take portrait or small items. However, if you are a little more diligent, you can also take landscape shots. You can just move around to secure the angle.

04_Quality

Stable performance and quality

[Stable resolving power]

One of the reasons that I can trust the Samsung NX 30mm F2.0 is the stable resolving power. It shows stable and constant resolution in F2-11 for center and in F2.8-11 in surroundings. There’s not much resolving power difference between the center and surrounding, and in maximum opening aperture, the quality of surroundings are not drastically reduced. Actually, it shows the stable performance for all the area.

The resolving power of the aperture in the most of the area can be dissembled up to 2500 from the center. At least for the resolving power, users don’t have to worry about it.

The best resolving power in F5.6

The performance in the resolving power chart can also be applied to pictures in the life. When it comes to complicated subjects like a leaf, it shows the small difference that was not fully shown in the chart.

In F5.6, the resolving power was the highest according to the samples. Looking at the great resolving power in F8 also, it seems that it can also provide the similar resolving power in F6.3. On the other hand, in F22, the resolving power and contrast got decreased, so the picture got darker.

Strong to the chromatic aberration

The chromatic aberration mainly comes with purple, green or bluish green. The problem is the purple. It’s because the condition of chromatic aberration looks far from the purple chromatic aberration. However, when it comes to the 30mm F2.0, there was rarely purple chromatic aberration, so it didn’t really bother. Green chromatic aberration is completely gone from F4.

The purple chromatic aberration is very so weak that it’s almost impossible to be recognized. The 30mm F2.0 has it under control under the strong daylight, and in F2.5, it can’t be easily recognized.

Most of the backlight and reflex light condition, the chromatic aberration rarely occurred or was almost unrecognizable. Actually, it’s more difficult to create the chromatic aberration, so the 30mm F2.0 is really strong to the chromatic aberration.

Freedom of F2.0

When going out, just use the pancake lens. However, pancake lenses are not the same. They need to be bright, have great quality, and great shooting performance. And even to be small. The Samsung 30mm F2.0 pancake lens can fulfill these all things. I don’t know if there will be F1.x pancake lens or something, but after using it for a while, I realized how useful the lens is. Landscape, portrait, snap, and a little Macro… Probably, Samsung tried to make this pancake lens as much as the NX body.

Telling the future of the NX series

The Samsung NX 30mm F2.0 lens brought the great performance and quality. Moreover, its great mobility becomes even better with the mirrorless interchangeable lens NX10.

The great quality for all central and surrounding area doesn’t mean just the great performance of the NX 30mm F2.0 lens. It makes people expect the quality of other lenses which will be released.