Samsung NX 30 mm f/2.0 review - Build quality

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Samsung NX 30 mm f/2.0

15 February 2010

Arkadiusz Olech

3. Build quality

The following chart presents a comparison between the tested lens and other „pancakes”, launched in the previous years. You can see very clearly that the product of Samsung is very interesting but the constructors of its optics faced perhaps the most difficult task. The Pentax 2.8/40 Limited, designed to work on the APS-C/DX sensor, is as inconspicuous and small as the Samsung but by 1 EV slower. The Olympus 2.8/17 gives a wider angle of view but it is slower as well. The Panasonic 1.7/20 is fast, with a bit wider angle of view, but it was designed for a small 4/3 format sensor in which case it is easier to get smaller lens’s parameters and combine them with good fastness. The Samsung designers didn’t have it easy because manufacturing something small and fast, which can produce good quality images, often stands in contradiction to producing a device affordably priced.

As we don’t have any pancakes among our editorial office equipment in the picture below we compared the Samsung lens with the NX system’s kit lens 18-55 mm OIS and a Sigma 1.4/30.

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The Samsung NX 30 mm f/2.0 makes a good impression. Although its housing is made of plastics the mount is metal. You can hardly put many things on such a small barrel - there was just enough room for a narrow but ribbed manual focus ring. It features electronic transmission which means turning it gives an effect only when the lens is connected to a working body. The ring moves easily with little resistance but in the utility limits. You just have to remember that even a light touch can cause a distinct change in focus. To run through the scale you must turn the ring by about 45 degrees.

The ring movement makes the whole optical system extend by even 0.5 centimeter. The lens ends with a non-rotating filter thread with a diameter of 43 mm.

When it comes to the inner construction we deal here with a set of 5 elements in 5 groups. One element is aspherical. The aperture inside the lens has seven diaphragm blades and can be closed down to f/22.