Samsung has revealed a pocket-friendly mirrorless interchangeable lens camera that's claimed to be the thinnest and lightest on the market. The 20 megapixel Smart Camera NX mini sports a flip up, touch-enabled display panel designed to take the guesswork out of self portraits, has built-in NFC and Wi-Fi with Smart Camera features, and is available with a new NX-M mount wide-angle lens for inclusive group shots.
The new NX mini has a battery-free weight of just 158 g (5.6 oz) and body dimensions of 110.4 x 61.9 x 22.5 mm (4.35 x 2.44 x 0.89 in), excluding protrusions. The camera has a 20.5 megapixel 1-inch type BSI CMOS sensor, is capable of 6 frames per second continuous shooting, and its 1/16000 second shutter speed should help nab fast moving subjects for blur-free digital memories. Though it has a built-in flash, its low-light-friendly ISO160 to 12800 sensitivity range (which can be extended down to 100 and up to 25600) could mean that it's used infrequently.
A 3-inch, 460.8k-dot resolution touchscreen LCD panel to the rear flips up 180 degrees for selfie shots, but Samsung has also included a new wink shot feature to help make including the photographer in solo or group shots a little less cumbersome. As the name suggests, the user just needs to frame the shot and wink at the camera and the shutter will fire after a two second pause.
The camera comes with built-in NFC and 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi for tap to connect image viewing on a paired smart device screen, sharing photos across up to four devices, or remote operation. It can even be used as a noise-detecting monitor that's capable of feeding images to a smartphone, which is handy if you want to keep an eye on your newborn from another room in the house.
The NX mini's metal body has been treated to the leatherette finish that seems to be appearing on all of the company's new products, and includes a HDMI out port for viewing the high res photos or Full HD (1920 x 1080 resolution) video recorded at 30 frames per second on a big screen TV.
Samsung has also introduced three NX mini lenses which are optimized for use with the camera, though an NX-M Mount Adapter is available to make the 15 existing NX system lenses available to users. The NX mini is due for release next month in a choice of white, pink, green, brown and black for US$449, and is bundled with the new NX-M 9 mm F3.5 ED pancake lens.
Source: Samsung
