Samsung NX200

Wish it had a flip out screen. I'd consider it over NEX if it had a flip out screen that could land vertical format. NEX can't do that and 99% of my work is vertical.

The camera is beautiful, I like the styling. But the samples provided are all blurry, mushy... nothing with that critical snap at 100%.

There's been a lot of controversy regarding NX200 samples in several reviews, most probably due to the poor (especially at ISO 800 and above) JPG engine Samsung has on all of their mirrorless cameras. I have seen some impressive results from RAW and the sensor seems a bit better than NEX7 and quite close to NEX5n. However, the beauty of the Samsung system comes from their lenses: 2-3 pancakes (30/2 is almost flawless, sharp wide open), mcro and portrait primes, above average zooms. The older models (NX100 and NX10) sell for $200-$300 and they have very good IQ at lower ISO, higher ISO requires RAW and MF is not that friendly.

For the tilt+swivel screen, check out the Samsung EX1, smaller CCD sensor but great IQ and fast lens on top of good price.

Edit: One more plus one the Samsung mirrorless and EX1, the user interface is great, Minolta-like in many cases.

I don't think the Samsung jpeg engine is "bad", based on experience with other Samsung cameras, but consistently I must agree that NX200 samples direct from the camera don't look as sharp as one would expect from a 20Mp sensor.

In fairness to Samsung, Sony jpegs are not exactly known for their high quality either - and from using both brands, I think I prefer the Samsung white balance and out of camera colour to Sony's, but that's personal taste.

The NX200 has the potential to be an interesting camera, and as commented above, the lens range is quite interesting - they have managed to make a number of small primes in the 24m to 50mm range, and a compact zoom on APS-C. However, they do employ in camera corrections, which tends to diminish image quality particualrly in the outer field, but without the corrections turned on, some of the lenses tend to show quite dramatic rectalinear distortions. Their 60mm macro and fast 85mm are interesting lenses, but tend to dwarf the camera.

The two downsides for me currently is the lack of a viewfinder for the NX200 - it's a pity they could not build one in - and the need for an accessory flash gun rather than building one in (a la NEX cameras).

I suspect the images processed from RAW could be quite good. I did take a look at (download) a DPReview raw studio sample, and it was pretty good - and appeared lower noise than the NEX-7 sample they had.