Samsung NX5 – Large sensor, interchangeable lenses in a small body

Samsung NX5

This is slightly old news now, but back in June Samsung announced the NX5, a new mirrorless interchangeable lens camera. Compared to DSLRs like the Nikon D90 and Canon T2i, the NX5 is much smaller, and compared to other mirrorless cameras its a similar size (in between the Panasonic GF1 and G2), but has a much larger sensor (APS-C 23x15mm vs four thirds 18x13mm).

The NX5 looks like a little brother to the also recent NX10. I think the NX5 is meant to retail at a lower price than the NX10 due its screen (lower resolution, 230k vs 621k dots, and LCD vs the NX10’s OLED), but looks comparable on all other features. See Snapsort’s comparison of the NX5 vs NX10.

Samsung now has two models available in this hot new category of cameras, often called EVIL (electronic viewfinder interchangeable lens camera). Rumors abound about both Nikon and Canon entering this category soon, since so far they are leaving it wide open to the competition, Panasonic and Sony seemingly leading the pack, Olympus and Samsung not far behind. Check out the full line up of EVIL cameras at Snapsort.

Like the other mirrorless camera’s, the NX5 lacks a through-the-lens viewfinder required to be called a DSLR, but it maintains the styling of a DSLR and instead uses a digital viewfinder. The NX5’s viewfinder doesn’t look as good as the NX10’s though. The NX10 has a 921k dot electronic viewfinder, vs the NX5’s 201k dots, which is going to make it a bit harder to see detail in the image, for testing focus for example.

So far, it looks like the NX5 is not widely available for sale, but it is offered from amazon.de in Germany, see the NX5 with an 18-55mm image stabilized lens for EUR 599.

Source: The NX5 at Samsung.com