Friday, March 22, 2013
As one of Samsung’s flagship point-and-shoot cameras, the EX2F is
nicely styled shooter that offers plenty of user-adjustable controls. It
also sports an amazing fast-aperture lens, large sensor, beautiful
display, and great use of Wi-Fi. It can’t rival a DSLR or mirrorless
camera, but the EX2F is a very good point-and-shoot.
Features and design
When you hold the EX2F in your hand, the heft and size tells you
right away that it’s no ordinary point-and-shoot. With a
rangefinder-like design, dials, and a solid metal (magnesium alloy)
construction, you can’t help but feel like a street or war photographer
when you’re shooting with it. You can stash it in your coat pocket, but
there’s nothing small or compact about it.
The EX2F, of course, was not created for the average user. The ideal
buyer would be someone who wants to step-up from a basic shooter, but
isn’t ready to embrace a bulkier camera that uses interchangeable
lenses. Because the EX2F only has a 3.3x Schneider-Kreuznach optical
zoom lens, it isn’t a bridge camera like the megazoom models with 20x
zooms or longer. But, like an entry-level DSLR, there are manual and
semi-automatic shooting modes, in addition to the Smart Auto and scene
modes, RAW uncompressed image capture, and Full HD video capture at
1080p at 30 frames per second.
One of the highlights of this camera is the F/1.4 aperture lens,
which lets you achieve a shallower depth-of-field and capture bright
photos with vibrant colors. Supporting the lens is the large
12.4-megapixel back-illuminated (BSI) CMOS sensor. The camera has a wide
ISO range of 80 to 12,800.
The other highly touted feature is the camera’s built-in Wi-Fi, and
Samsung currently has one of the best Wi-Fi implementations in cameras
(it helps when you have a camera division in the same company that makes
smartphones). To enter Wi-Fi mode, simply turn the mode dial to “Wi-Fi”
and you’re presented with a menu that lets you transfer images to any
smart device running iOS or Android. You can use a smart device as a
remote viewfinder and shutter; upload images to Facebook, Picasa,
YouTube, or Photobucket; e-mail your photos and videos; upload to a
cloud storage service; automatically back up your files to a PC
wirelessly; or play back content on a device connected to the same
network, like a Samsung TV. (There’s also a Smart Link button on the
navigation button to enter a preset Wi-Fi function with one touch.) What
makes Samsung’s Wi-Fi feature is that it’s fairly simple to set up and
easy to use; it had no issues finding Wi-Fi networks or smart devices.
We were able to transfer images to a test phone, as well as using the
phone to operate the camera remotely – nifty.
But it isn’t perfect. For example, to use the remote viewfinder and
file-transfer features with your smart device, you have to download two
separate apps (we tested it with an iPhone 4S); Samsung has recently
combined all its camera mobile apps into one, but that app isn’t
supported by the EX2F. And, you still have to drill through several
menus to get connected, and the whole process does take some time.
Colors pop off the screen and images look life-like, making it one of the better displays we’ve seen.
On the back you’ll find a 3-inch display. While it’s rated at 614K
dots, it looks much sharper and brighter, thanks to the AMOLED screen.
Colors pop off the screen and images look life-like, making it one of
the better displays we’ve seen. Icons on the screen are easy to read and
unobtrusive when you’re composing a shot. The screen also flips out and
swivels to let you frame your shots at different angles. The screen is
also very responsive; as you make settings adjustments, the live view
adjusts accordingly, giving you an idea of how your image will look.
On the downside, we wish it were touch capable. Now, we’ve criticized
other cameras’ touchscreen displays for being more of a hindrance, but
the EX2F begs for it. The menus are well designed and laid out, but
navigating through them using the physical buttons takes some getting
used to. Sometimes we wish we could just press what we want on the
screen and go directly to it. Fortunately, a scroll wheel on the camera
front makes it easy to quickly adjust exposure compensation, aperture,
and shutter speed.
This type of camera demands a viewfinder. While framing our shots
with the display isn’t a problem, we would have loved the ability to
bring the camera to our eye for better control. (Samsung offers an
external optical viewfinder accessory that fits on the hot shoe.)
As for camera design, the front has a small grip for your right hand,
lens, scroll wheel, and AF-assist light/timer lamp. The ring around the
lens unscrews to let you mount an optional conversion lens. The bottom
has the battery and SD card (support for SDXC up to 64GB) compartment
and tripod mount. On the right side is a door that opens to reveal an
HDMI port and a port that doubles handles both USB and A/V cables.
On the top, you’ll find a flash release for the pop-up flash, a hot
shoe, power button, stereo microphones, shutter button, zoom toggle,
drive mode dial, and mode dial. The dials are super handy: The mode dial
lets you switch between shooting modes on the fly, while the drive mode
dial lets you quickly adjust settings for burst mode, bracketing, and
timer, to name a few. We were pleasantly surprised by how useful they
were, not having to go through menus.
The back of the camera is dominated by the display, but scrunched
together on the right are the various function buttons for video
recording: exposure lock, menu, playback, delete, an Fn button to access
various shooting options (like ISO, exposure compensation, white
balance, etc.), navigation buttons that double as display, flash,
one-touch Wi-Fi, macro, and “OK” buttons (surrounding them is another
scroll wheel for navigation).
Inside the box
Besides the camera, inside the box you’ll find a USB cable and AC
adapter, a battery pack, neck strap, CD containing the full user manual,
quick start guide, and lens cap. Note that Samsung does not include a
battery charger, which is available separately; the battery is charged
in-camera via USB.
Performance and use
Despite its more advanced features, the EX2F is a relatively
easy-to-use camera. As mentioned, the menus are well laid-out and simple
to understand. What we like, however, are the “help” dialog boxes that
pop up on the display to explain what some of the settings are for. For
example, highlight the exposure compensation with the navigation button
and a box appears, telling you that it’s used to adjust brightness. For
users stepping up from a basic camera, who may not be familiar with all
the bells and whistles, these dialog boxes will be helpful. (If you’re
completely green to this type of camera, spend some time with the user
manual found on the CD.)
The EX2F takes very good images under normal shooting conditions,
thanks to the lens. Colors are brilliant and accurate. However,
sometimes it’s too bright: During a test shoot when a bright sun was
overhead, images were a bit overexposed, requiring us to tone things
down.
With nighttime shots, the camera did a respectable job, but there’s
noticeable noise at ISO 800. Even at ISO 3,200, the images were
still usable. But the wide aperture brings in enough light that keeping
it at ISO 400 should suffice. The camera stumbles when there’s very
little light around, but having the ability to manually adjust the
settings to compensate is what makes a camera like this so useful.
Video quality isn’t bad, although a video shot at night looked a bit
noisy and soft, and with a slight hiccup. As we’re walking and
recording, the image stabilization did its best to compensate.
:) One Of the best camera i used.
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