Product Description
The GX-10 s large 10.2 Megapixel CCD (23.5 x 15.7 mm) enables superior out focusing and vividly detailed pictures are made possible by its unmatched ability to capture light and color.Image Resolution: 10.2 Megapixel Lens: Schneider D-XENON Lens * All PENTAX DSLR lenses are available. * KAF2 KAF mount lenses KA mount lenses Movie Mode: n/a Internal Memory: 128MB Memory Card Compatibility: SD Card SDHC card LCD Size: Low-temperature polysilicon TFT color LCD monitor 2.5 (approximately 210000 dots) Brightness adjustable Wide angle view Power Options: Rechargeable D-LI50 lithium-ion battery AC Adapter (Optional) Interface: Digital Output Connector : USB 2.0 (HI-SPEED)Video Output : NTSC PAL (user selectable) DC Power Input Connector : DC 6.5V Pictbridge Enabled: Yes Box Contents: 18-55mm D-Xenon lensD-LI50 lithium-ion battery Digimax Master SoftwareCables Warranty: 1 year
Customer Reviews:
Samsung DSLR - a very pleasant surprise.......2007-08-23
I have had this camera for a few weeks after having used a pentax *ist DL and have been very impressed with it.
Build quality:
The first thing I noticed was how solid it felt in my hands, given the price point of this camera I was quite amazed. To my mind it feels as good as the Nikon D80. The grip is comfortable and the buttons in sensible positions.
Key Specs:
1. With weather and dust seals the GX10 (and its brother the pentax K10D) is uniquely placed in the DSLR market to combat adverse weather conditions. Add to this the anti-dust system and you have a very effective system. Anyone with a DSLR who has suffered from particles on the sensor will tell you this is very very useful. I've taken thousands of images and not had to re-touch any due to particles on the sensor. It is slightly off-putting when you start the camera up and feel a bit of a shake though I quickly got used to this
2. Anti-Shake seems to work pretty well, certainly noticeable without it, although I don't know how this compares with other cameras systems.
3. 10MP Sensor, most people will not need bigger - I've printed off some A3 prints that I've been very happy with.
Handling:
It feels great in the hand, very solidly built and has an array of buttons close to hand. Focus zones and metering zones can all be changed with external buttons. You do however have to go into the menu system to change the ISO, but you quickly get used to doing this. The white balance settings give you a preview of the impact different selections will have on the image, which is very useful, particularly when you deliberately choose an incorrect setting. I don't think the metering system works quite as well as my friends nikon, but on the whole was pretty impressive.
Image Quality:
On the whole very impressive, although just like the Pentax, the jpegs do seem to be very slightly lacking some of the sharpness you would get from a canon or nikon. However, you really need to be looking at full size images to notice, and as most of the time you're not going for more than A4 it really doesn't matter. The RAW images are amazing, 22bit means lots of flexibility when you come to do some post processing.
On the whole, especially for the money, I could not believe how good the camera is. The biggest down side is the name on the front and lack of kit from Samsung, but there is such a huge array of past and present pentax stuff that you can use this should not be a problem. You are likely to get a few sniggers from the canon/nikon boys, but with an equally capable camera and lots of spare change in your pocket, you'll get the last laugh.
Product Description
The GX-10 s large 10.2 Megapixel CCD (23.5 x 15.7 mm) enables superior out focusing and vividly detailed pictures are made possible by its unmatched ability to capture light and color.Image Resolution: 10.2 Megapixel Lens: Schneider D-XENON Lens * All PENTAX DSLR lenses are available. * KAF2 KAF mount lenses KA mount lenses Movie Mode: n/a Internal Memory: 128MB Memory Card Compatibility: SD Card SDHC card LCD Size: Low-temperature polysilicon TFT color LCD monitor 2.5 (approximately 210000 dots) Brightness adjustable Wide angle view Power Options: Rechargeable D-LI50 lithium-ion battery AC Adapter (Optional) Interface: Digital Output Connector : USB 2.0 (HI-SPEED)Video Output : NTSC PAL (user selectable) DC Power Input Connector : DC 6.5V Pictbridge Enabled: Yes Box Contents: 18-55mm D-Xenon lens50-200mm D-Xenon lens D-LI50 lithium-ion battery Digimax Master SoftwareCables Warranty: 1 year
Customer Reviews:
Best value D-SLR.......2007-06-10
We spent ages researching which D-SLR to upgrade to from a simple point and shoot. Looked at canon 400D, nikon D40x and D80, sony alpha, pentax K10D and even olympus E-400 as it was a good deal with the arrival of the E-410. Looked at getting kit lenses versus body only with a sigma or tamron 18-200 or 250 lens to avoid having to carry (and change) an extra lens. After hours of internet searching we eventually went with the samsung GX-10 with the twin lens kit - as it was by far the best value and has useful features like shake reduction.
If you want detailed reviews, a great site is dphotojournal.com - it links to all the reviews from the major web sites. You can find at least 1 site that swears each of the above cameras is the best by far - which kind of proves the point that there is not much between the 10mp D-SLRs currently and you should go with the one that feels best in your hands. So for me the 400D and D40x felt like awkward little plastic toys, the sony felt clunky and out of date. The D80, GX-10 (and the almost identical k10D) all felt perfect for me - nice to hold and use, solid but not too heavy. My wife is 5'4 and was worried these 3 would be too big for her 'carny' hands - she now loves the GX-10. I liked the D80 but found I couldn't use the zoom very well without anti-shake - and to get the nikon zoom lens with built in anti-shake was way too expensive.
This left us with the K10D versus samsung GX-10. This was no contest as the samsung has a 2 year warranty and costs substantially less.
The kit lenses are better than most (camera labs review) and it has great weather seals, anti-dust, and the anti-shake really helps with macro or zoom where even little movements give blur without a tripod. I'm told the anti-shake buys you '2-3 stops' - not sure yet what that means(!) but the results are brilliant.
Cons:
-It is a big step up from point and shoot so has taken a little while to learn how to use it (there is a fully auto mode that does it all for you though). That said, it is a camera we are unlikely to outgrow (unlike the D40x which is probably easier at first but could be too easy to master and then get bored with).
-JPEGs are a bit too compressed and a bit soft if viewed side by side with a D80 at default settings. You can easily improve this by increasing sharpness in the settings (DCRP review) or just shoot in RAW. RAW images are brilliant but large - fine if you get a fast card (e.g transcend 2GB 150x). Truth is you can't tell the difference unless you really crop an image and blow up to maximum on a screen - in print they are spectacular.
-Our final concern was size and weight. Now that we have it this is not a problem at all. It fits beautifully in a Lowepro Apex 140. Most stores don't stock this range of Lowepro (?why)but amazon have it at a great price. It is sleek, light and secure and fits the camera with lens attached and the spare lens and spare battery plus a bit more. This was the smallest bag we could find that did this comfortably all the others were too big or had extra pockets that we don't need - they just add bulk.
Sorry for droning on - but truly love this camera. I cannot recommend it highly enough!
A very Fine Camera.......2007-05-15
Let me explain up front that I am an Ex Sony Alpha user. I will refer to the Alpha in this review just for comparison purposes. OK lets kick of with the Is it a Pentax thing..... Well yes it probably is. It certainly costs less but the real point here is does it take good pictures and the answer to that is yes too. The supplied lenses are probably the best I have seen bundled with a camera. The 18-55 is also a realy pleasant surprise. I was thinking I would need a specialist Macro lens, but not a bit of it. This lens does the job very well at close range.Overall it's performance is very good, good strong SHARP images from a lens designed for a digital camera. The 200mm is not as sharp and still comes up a bit short from 300mm lenses I am used to. But it is still very good with a level of detail that is really impressive. To give you some idea a 2 person head shot shot with some surrounding fill can be cropped to 1 single eye and a bit of surround and printed at 5X4 and look like it was shot at full resolution, yes that good.
If you are wondering why I have said so nuch about the glass it really is that important. I dipped out on the Sony alpha because I used Ex Minolta SLR glass I had to decide if I was prepared to spend several hundred pounds on new glass to get some decent, ghost free, shots. I didn't like the camera controls so I binned the lot for this. It's the best decision I ever made, the Samsung is a joy to use. The Sony is not a bad camera but if you want to move away from Point and shoot 35mm compacts this is not the camera to go for. It retains too many budget features that distract. It takes to long to setup. Then when you switch it off it resets itself. No such problems with the samsung. It deals in the important basics, allowing the photographer to be creative and work quickly. Get the white ballance right (and the camera will often do this for you) and you have a quality piece of equipment that will produce top rate images. It will shoot indoors in low light and give stunning results. I really could go on more but I am sure you have got the picture, this is a fantastic camera that is way underpriced because it does not carry a pentax badge. Buy it before everyone else does, and good luck with your photography.............Sorry Sony.
Great camera!.......2007-03-29
I won this camera through a competition from a Photography magazine and was very impressed by it's performance.
I'm a die-hard Canon user, so I would never had bought this camera (and it still holds secondary status in my kit), but for anyone but a pro level shooter, the camera is excellent.
The controls are great, easy and in many cases, self explanatory.
The only negative I have about the camera is the AF on the kit lens is very very loud. I imagine some of the other Pentax lenses are much quieter. Speaking of, as far as I know, it fits all the Pentax lenses so you don't have to worry about there being no "Samsung" lenses..
Bottom line, great build, great and easy controls and very good quality results.
It's not my Canon, but it's quite good!
The Forgotten Champion!.......2007-03-14
[...]
This D-SLR camera has a 10.14 mega pixel CCD sensor with a focal conversion factor of approx. 1.5 which means that if you fit a 50mm length prime lens onto this camera it then becomes a 75mm lens which is great as a portrait lens. However, if you like to use say a 20mm wide angle lens then it becomes a 30mm lens in effect. These are but two examples of what is commonly known as the 'Crop Factor'.
The usual Auto, Program, Aperture and Shutter priority modes are present together with Manual. There's also a Sensitivity Priority mode in which you can set the sensitivity of the camera to suit to the lighting conditions and the camera will automatically set the correct aperture & shutter speed.
The D-XENON 18-55mm kit lens manufactured by Schneider-Kreuznach (Who? Well they are a well known German manufacturer of Optics, especially lenses that are used in Hollywood for the movie business.) is as good as any kit lens from the likes of Canon or Nikon etc..
However, the D-XENON 50-200mm telephoto-zoom lens has got to be the best value for money lens going. When I view photos I've taken with this lens I'm blown away by the crip, contrast images that I see. I don't see any chromatic abberations nor lens distortion at all (I have not done any clinical tests yet so I'm going by what I can and cannot see.) This is the lens that I usually fit and they attach to the body using the Pentax K mount, which means you can use all lenses with this mount as from year dot. Of course there's some restrictions, for instance if you attach a manual focusing lens to this camera, don't expect it to become an auto focusing lens as if by magic, and on some lenses you will have to set the aperture ring manually (Ah, the good old days).
However, the trouble I have with the Samsung GX-10 is that wherever you look on the Internet for information you'll only find reviews for the Pentax K10D. This is by no means a bad thing of course but I get the impression that if it a'int a Pentax, it a'int worth having. Take no notice of those snobs, this is a Pentax in Samsung's garb. The only differences I can see are cosmetic and that the Samsung has, in addition to the usual JPEG file, a single .DNG RAW file format which is used by Adobe. Pentax have these two files formats plus their own PEF RAW file.
There is of course the in body image stabilizer known here as OPS (or as I call it "Oops" lol) and this means that any lens fitted is an image stabilized lens at a fraction of the cost of say a Canon or Nikon lens. There is also the many wheather protection seals incorporated into the design and there are wheatherproof lenses coming from Pentax later this year.
Another downside to the Samsung is that they are way behind Pentax when it comes to releasing firmware updates and drivers. I keep checking their website but nothing new yet. However, you can use all of the Pentax K10D accessories on this D-SLR. I haven't Emailed Samsung yet to find out if the Pentax version 1.10 firmware release is 100% compatible with the GX-10. It's not a chance I'm willing to take without proof.
There's also Samsung's Digimax Master and Digimax RAW Converter software supplied but I cannot comment on these as I use Photoshop, but as far as I can tell they're good enough for the job. (as my comments about Pentax only reviews on the Web).
There is so much more to this camera that I could go on all day writing about it, so I won't.
However, one last piece of advice, regardless of what lens you fit to whatever camera, and regardless on how much it costs, FIT an UV lens filter at least to it to protect the outer glass element. These cost only a few quid as apposed to [...]s that some lens can cost.
Stunning.......2007-03-04
I hasten to say that I did not purchase this camera from Amazon because if I was lookng at parting with the sum they are asking I would have bought the Pentax K10D only due to the residual value that I believe the Pentax name may have. Fortunately though I only paid £599.99 from Argos for the twin lens kit and my initial impressions when examining the 200+ photos taken so far is that it is excellent.
I was concerned with reviews that said the camera was noisey when focussing, took a while to lock on to subjects, the shutter clanked, that it was quite heavy and that there was the sense something was loose in side due to the OPS system.
Well let me tell you the focussing is spot on and I cannot tell the difference when comparing it to like priced cameras. It is by no means excessively noisey although the USM of the canon lens is quieter and as far as shutter noise goes it sounds a great deal better that the Sony A100, marginally better than the canon and as refined as the nikon D80.
The knocking inside the camera, when you do notice it, is reassuringly dampned indicating to me that it is part and parcel of the camera and I am not concerned in the slightest with this. Also you do have to deliberately rock the camera with a bit of force to get it to make any noise.
When it comes to the weight 200g which is about the difference between this camera and the ones from Canon and Sony is a bonus as the camera feels better balanced. The extra size also allows you to position your fingers for comfort as opposed to having this decision dictated to you by the lack of room and, on the sony at least, over moulding of the hand grip.
Yes this camera is a rebadged Pentax K10D (so what!) with some tweaking from Samsung on design and interface but it is a quality DSLR with weather/dust seals, proper locks on the battery and memory compartments, both lenses have metal mounts and it comes with a 2 year warranty and I feel it warrants being recognised as a camera in its own right in the current line up.
I did not already own any SLR equipment as I traded my old film SLR an EOS30e when I bought a Minolta A1 3 years ago, This camera suffered from the dreaded sensor fault and was given the lethal injection by my insurance company hence the releasing of funds for this venture into DSLR land. If I had owned some lenses and flash units etc from a certain marque then the choice would have been different but as I don't the GX10 made financial sense.
I bought the camera on its merits and to take quality photos and not to advertise brand loyalty, also lets face it technology moves on so quickly now that within 3 years most of the current crop of DSLRs and their "kit" lenses will have little resale value anyway.
I would not hesitate in recommending this camera, but a word of caution if you are a real beginner in photography be prepared to do some reading on the finer details of technique re shutter and iso speeds, aperture settings and the like as the camera is not adorned with the various scene modes as found on the point and shoot and entry level DSLR cameras, you are very much put in control of the camera, thankfully the auto setting produces amazing results whilst you study!
UK Electronics:
- Samsung NV8 Digital Camera - Metal Body (8MP, 3 x Optical Zoom)
- Samsung S600 Digital Camera (6.0MP, 3x Optical Zoom) 2.5" LCD
- Samsung S630 Digital Camera 6MP Zoom ASR Anti-Shake Image Stablisation Black
- Samsung S750 Digital Camera - Silver (7MP, 3 x Optical Zoom) 2.5" LCD
- SANYO HD1000 High Definition Camcorder - black
- Sanyo Xacti CG65 SD Card Digital Movie Camera
- Sapphire 10.2" Digital Photo Frame With MP3/MP4 Player
- Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T50S Digital Camera - Silver (7.2MP 3xOptical Zoom) 3.0" LCD
- Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W55 Digital Camera - Silver (7.2MP, 3x Optical Zoom) 2.5'' LCD
- Sony CyberShot DSC-W80 (Black)
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