Mirrorless cameras were supposed to herald the end of carrying big cameras, but it hasn’t made as much of an impact as many thought, with still bulky sizes for interchangeable lens cameras. Samsung wants to do something about this, though, unveiling a compact mirrorless with an even more compact mount.
A new camera with a new lens mount, that appears to be the subject over at Samsung this week, as the company announces its NX Mini, the first compact edition of its mirrorless NX format.
If you’ve never seen a Samsung NX before, it is essentially the Samsung equivalent of the compact system cameras put out by Sony, Olympus, and Panasonic to name but a few. There’s no mirror box like a conventional large bodied single lens reflex camera, with the sensor instead exposed directly to the lens.
Without the mirrors, the camera be more svelte, but still have a focal range defined by the lenses you choose, rather than keep it fixed from the factory, as is the case with compact cameras with preset lenses that you can’t change.
But while these mirrorless cameras are often smaller than their digital SLR counterparts, they’re not always the smallest they can be.
The NX Mini hopes to be different, though, providing a compact body with a compact lens mount, reducing the size of the NX lens mount to something much smaller, and renaming it the NX-M (NX Mini) lens mount so that people aren’t confused in the process.
“The NX Mini is a fantastic evolution in Samsung’s commitment to deliver small, stylish and portable cameras that can deliver a great experience through great lenses and features,” said Craig Gillespie, Samsung’s Head of Digital Imaging for Australia.
Built to be lightweight, the NX Mini weighs a touch more than some smartphones at 158 grams (though it creeps up to 196 grams with the battery and 227 grams with a small lens), and is just under 2.3cm thin, skipping on the viewfinder in this camera, but instead equipping it with a 3 inch LCD that can flip up and above the camera to act as a way of taking selfies.
The camera itself takes advantage of a 20.5 megapixel CMOS sensor with a crop factor of 2.7x, capable of a sensitivity range from 100 to 25600, images shot as fast as 6 frames per second, RAW compatibility, Full HD video, WiFi, and Near-Field Communication to help transfer images quickly.
A lens is required for this camera to work, and while a 9mm f/3.5 lens (equivalent to 24.3mm) will be included for basic things, two other lenses will be released in the beginning for other uses, with a small zoom lens available in the form of the 9-27mm lens f/3.5-5.6 (24.3-72.9mm) and a 17mm f/1.8 (45.9mm) for low-light shooting.
Furthermore, Samsung will also be making an NX to NX-M lens mount adaptor for those people already with an assortment of lenses for Samsung’s regular NX cameras.
The Samsung NX Mini tiny mirrorless is available now, with Adobe’s Lightroom 5 bundled in the box, available in two versions, bundled with either the 9mm fixed for $499 or the 9-27mm compact zoom for $599. Individual lens pricing has not yet been announced.
