Samsung 30mm f/2 NX Pancake Lens Review

Samsung 30mm f/2 NX Pancake Performance

Typically for a pancake lens, sharpness in the centre of the frame approaches excellent levels at maximum aperture, but the clarity towards the edges of the frame lags behind somewhat and can only be described as fair.

MTF at 30mm

How to read our charts The blue column represents readings from the centre of the picture frame at the various apertures and the green is from the edges. Averaging them out gives the red weighted column. The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple. For this review, the lens was tested on a Samsung NX20 using Imatest.

Stopping down improves clarity in the centre of the frame, peaking at f/4, where sharpness is outstanding. Unfortunately, clarity towards the edges doesn't start to catch up until the lens is stopped down to f/5.6 or beyond.

CA at 30mm

How to read our charts Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software. Apochromatic lenses have special lens elements (aspheric, extra-low dispersion etc) to minimize the problem, hence they usually cost more. For this review, the lens was tested on a Samsung NX20 using Imatest.

Chromatic aberrations are well controlled, with extremely low levels recorded at wider apertures. This low level of CA increases as the aperture is stopped down, but still doesn't reach the point where fringing may be an issue, even at f/22.

Falloff of illumination towards the corners is also remarkably well controlled for a lens with such a bright maximum aperture. At f/2 the corners are only 0.5 stops darker than the image centre and visually uniform illumination is achieved with the lens stopped down to f/2.8.

Virtually no distortion is present in images taken with this lens. Imatest could only detect 0.0196% barrel distortion.

Contrast is good with this lens and no issues with flare were encountered during testing, even in images with the sun close the the edges of the frame.

Add your message