A camera that connects wirelessly to the internet enabling you to instantly share your photos on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
What fun! I have never sent a "selfie" out into the world – except perhaps by mistake – but given the increasing propensity of the population at large to share – or indeed overshare – on social media, Samsung's Galaxy NX has the potential to be extremely popular.
But given the excellent photos it is possible to take with smartphones, is a Wi-Fi DSLR camera really necessary? I roped in a professional photographer to help me to put the camera through its paces. He took the job seriously. “Do we have to be nice?” he asked? “No? Then let’s kill it.”
It was ridiculous how quickly he was won over.
“This is really cool, actually,” he said after playing around with the device for a few minutes.
The camera operates on android technology – and it is extremely simple to set up and get going. I slotted in the microsim card I had bought and was good to go.
The screen is gorgeous, taking up almost the entire back of the camera. You navigate through the various menu functions and applications by swiping the screen (though there are dials too). It was easy to download Instagram and other applications.
There was definitely a novelty value in checking my Gmail on the back of a camera.
What separates the camera from a smartphone is the quality of the lenses – a variety of interchangeable lenses are available.
“The biggest problem with phone cameras is that they have wide angle lenses built in,” said my pro. “It’s almost impossible to take photos with any depth of field. The camera has a much better quality of lens and a larger sensor. With this you can take an Instagram photo with a zoom lens.”
My expert was also really excited about being able to back up photos straight to the cloud or send them to Dropbox.
“I always dreamed of this with my regular camera,” he said.
lgutcher@thenational.ae
