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We clicked with:
Robust weather-resistant construction
CCD-shift image stabiliser
Huge array of compatible lenses
Shots in the dark:
Soft control buttons
Rattley mechanism
Price Comparison:
Samsung GX10 DSLR
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If you wanted to enter the digital SLR market with no previous experience of it, you might consider using someone else's camera design. And if you were Samsung, and you really wanted to make a good job of it, you'd find a company renowned for its optics and with a huge legacy of cameras to build on. In fact, you'd choose to use Pentax.
Now Samsung's GX10 is in the market - a rebadge of the Pentax K10D with a few minor changes. But did they choose well? I spent some time with the GX10 to find out.
Specifications
The K10D is Pentax's top DSLR model and makes a very good base for the GX10. It sports a 10MP sensor (1.5x crop), weather resistant body, dust removal system and CCD-shift anti-shake system, all in a robust, solid-feeling body. Pentax's new PRIME image engine backs up the sensor, for rapid image processing. Image review and menus are via a bright 2.5 inch LCD display on the back. Power comes from a rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack (unlike previous Pentax/Samsung cameras which ran off AA batteries).
The GX10 is almost totally compatible with the K10D for accessories. The only part that cannot be shared between them is the battery grip - the GX10 has a slightly different shape to the grip that prevents the Pentax part fitting properly. That aside, all the other components are interchangeable, whether branded as Pentax or Samsung.
Where this really counts is with lenses. Pentax goes to some effort to make their cameras backward compatible with their lenses and the GX10 inherits this. Any Pentax lens going back almost 50 years can be used with the GX10 - this includes manual-everything lenses with a K-mount as well as later auto-focus and auto-aperture systems. This immediately gives the GX10 access to a huge range of high quality lenses. Even earlier glass can be used via adapter rings and the GX10 can also the new high-speed autofocus lenses being released by Pentax alongside the KxD series of cameras.
The review GX10 came with the kit lens, an 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom (27-83mm in 35mm terms). It's a standard lens spec for kit equipment, but despite noisy operation it does offer fast focusing and sharp pictures.
First Impressions
The first time you use the GX10, it gives a good impression. The camera is a nice size to hold with a cleverly sculpted rubberised grip that makes it very comfortable to use. It's fairly heavy but feels solid and robust - there's a good metal frame under the exterior and it combines with the weather seal to give you very high confidence in the camera. The opening compartments are mostly behind folding twist-release levers, so there's no risk of accidentally opening the battery or SD-card compartments.
The controls are mostly well positioned for thumb and finger, and despite a few awkward switches they're easy to use. The shutter release is a little soft, which can make it awkward to work out where the focus/fire divide is as you press the button.
Many of the other buttons are also a bit spongy, possibly a side effect of making them weather resistant. But the GX10 isn't afraid to have a few buttons, so nearly all of the commonly used functions have their own dedicated switches or dials on the outside of the body, including focusing mode and photometry settings. This design is to be applauded for the rapid access it offers, though notably there's no way to set the ISO value without going through the menus.
Despite the plethora of controls the camera is easy to understand, though Samsung supply a good manual to back you up if you get stuck.
In Use
Having started well in the hand, the camera continues to perform well at the eye. The viewfinder is a good size and bright thanks to a pentaprism design. It shows 95% coverage of the final picture and it's easy to view the entire frame even with glasses on - a huge benefit to some of us.
The camera on-off control sits next to the trigger - a quick flick and the camera is ready to go in about half a second. If the start-up dust removal is turned on, the camera shakes briefly during this period and makes a knocking noise. It's a little unsettling and suggests the CCD stabiliser mechanism is used to knock the sensor on the sides of the box to remove dust. Thankfully it's brief and doesn't appreciably delay use of the camera.
A half-press of the shutter release focuses the camera, which is fast and accurate. The camera is noisy when triggered and seems to be moving the mirror quite violently - you can hear and feel it as it moves. However, the action is swift and you can rattle off several shots in short order. A nice touch is that the two-second timer seems to automatically perform mirror-lock-up, ideal for macro shots.
Users of earlier Samsung DSLRs (which were also Pentax re-brands) will find the GX10 broadly familiar, with many of the controls in the same places, including the aperture preview that sits on the on/off switch. The main mode selector dial has gained some settings though. The most significant of these are Sv and TAv modes. Sv is Sensitivity priority - it functions much like Program mode, but allows fast setting of the ISO value.
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TAv is more interesting - once the shutter speed and aperture have been set, the camera will change the ISO rating to maintain a correct exposure. This has particular utility in event photography such as gigs where the lighting may change frequently but you want to maintain artistic control of the shutter speed and aperture.
The image stabiliser also comes into good use here. The GX10 calls it OPS (Optical Picture Stabilization) - it's a CCD shift mechanism that moves the sensor to counteract motion of the camera. Samsung claim it can give up to three stops of stabilisation. There are caveats to its use - it's not effective for very close subjects or long exposures, and should be turned off if you are using a tripod - but it's still a good tool and does seem to make a genuine improvement.
I would think from my experience that three stops is very much a best case, but it does give the GX10 a sharpness advantage a low shutter speeds. I also found that despite Samsung's recommendations, OPS does work on a tripod.
The camera is generally very responsive, though if you shoot in raw mode be prepared to wait before reviewing your images - at 16Mb an image, it takes some time to catch up. Luckily you can keep shooting while the previous image is writing, as you would expect of a DSLR. The GX10 produces DNG (Adobe Digital Negative) raw files - the Pentax raw format from the K10D is not supported.
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The GX10 will also produce JPEGs at varying quality levels. Use of DNG is very interesting - Adobe have promoted this as an open standard for some time but for a while only lofty Hassleblads wrote the format directly.
It's great to see Samsung using this format since it practically guarantees that any decent raw editor will be able to process the files - especially those written by Adobe. Personally I'm always happier when camera manufacturers stick to making cameras and leave software to the experts. Samsung do however shiop the camera with some basic raw software which allows for basic adjustments such as sharpening, colour correction and noise reduction.
Image Quality
The output from the GX10 also tries hard. Exposures are fairly good on typical scenes, and in bright light sources a quick stab at the exposure compensation will give good results. Images have strong colours with lots of punch - although the default settings do seem to be a little over saturated. The images have a good dynamic range, but the default settings also produce very hard-contrast images. Contrast and saturation can both be adjusted for the JPEG output, it's just a matter of taking them off the defaults.
The auto white balance puts in a good effort and is very capable in most scenarios. Occasionally it does seem to put a very light tint on an image but without a reference you'd most likely not notice it.
The kit lens produces reasonably sharp images; there's some slight softening and vignetting towards the corners, but it shouldn't spoil an image. Raw images are naturally sharper than JPEGs. There is some slight smearing on JPEG images which softens edges somewhat, probably in the name of noise reduction - it's not a problem but raw output is really the way to get the best from this camera.
Noise levels are pretty good, with ISO 100 and 200 very clean. At ISO 400, some luminance noise creeps in, but it's still acceptable. ISO 800 starts showing the worst of the noise, with noticeable luminance noise and some hints of extra noise in the blue channel - by ISO 1600 the blue noise has become more pronounced in dark areas and starts putting a slight blue cast on parts of the picture.
It's a pity that the performance drops off like this at the upper end of the ISO range, as a more balanced luminance-noise-only picture would still be pretty good - the colour noise is distracting though.
Conclusion
In all, Samsung's GX10 is a good camera. It's well designed, feature-rich and operates well. If you tweak the default settings it produces very good pictures and is backed up by useful shooting functions - the image stabiliser in particular is worth having. The camera feels good to use and will let you get on with making great pictures. There isn't much to dislike.
Having praised it in use though, there are some control buttons and dials that are awkward and not as positive as might be desired. It's also noisy (actually camera noise rather than image noise), though that may not be a problem depending on where you take photos. I would have liked a PC Sync socket for triggering studio flash units too, though it's not critical. And I had hoped that the high ISO performance would be better.
In all though, the result is good. Samsung made a good choice opting for a Pentax base system, and if you're looking for a new DSLR the GX10 will compete with Canon and Nikon. If you're sitting on a stack of Pentax lenses, the GX10 is all the choice you need.
