Compact. Sharp. Very little distortion.
Slow aperture. Plastic lens mount. Limited zoom range. Rotating front element.
The Samsung 20-50mm f/3.5-5.6 ED II NX Lens is a sharp, compact zoom lens for the NX system. It's size is appealing, but the lens is fairly slow.
The Samsung 20-50mm f/3.5-5.6 ED II NX Lens ($249 list)cameras, including the NX1000, but can also be purchased separately. At a mere 2.5 by 1.6 inches (HD), the 4.2-ounce lens is quite compact for an APS-C zoom, but it's not as small as a pancake prime like the Samsung NX 30mm Pancake Lens. It features a collapsible design, so part of the lens retracts into its barrel when not in use. The light weight is made possible in part by a plastic lens mount, which is no doubt less durable than traditional metal.is a kit lens for some Samsung NX
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The small design does have some drawbacks. You'll have to remember to release the lock catch before collapsing it, and the front element rotates while focusing. The latter prevents you from effectively using a circular polarizer filter with the camera. These rotating filters are often used to minimize reflections and to boost the colors of the sky, and when the lens moves to focus, the effect of the filter changes.
The lens does do quite well in Imatest. Its sharpness is superb at all apertures and tested focal lengths, exceeding the 1,800 lines per picture height required for a sharp image at every turn. At its widest aperture and focal length it exceeds 2,100 lines, and betters to 2,300 lines at f/5.6—all while recording only 0.2 percent of pincushion distortion. At 35mm the sharpness is still above 2,100 lines at f/4.5, and again exceeds 2,300 lines at f/5.6, with only 0.25 percent pincushion distortion. Finally at 50mm, the lens tops 2,000 lines at the widest f/5.6 aperture, increasing again to just shy of 2,400 lines at f/8. Here distortion is at its worst at 0.5 percent, but this isn't that bad at all for a kit zoom. The collapsing Panasonic Lumix G X Vario PZ 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 ASPH. notched 1.7 percent at its worst setting, but does have a longer 3x zoom ratio—the 20-50mm is a less ambitious 2.5x design.
If you're an NX camera owner looking for a smaller lens, the 20-50mm f/3.5-5.6 ED II NX is an appealing zoom option, but it's not the smallest lens you can get. Both the Samsung 16mm f/2.4 and the Samsung NX 30mm Pancake Lens are smaller and capture more light. Neither zooms, but both can be seen as a better lens to complement the larger 18-55mm kit zoom with which Samsung has paired many an NX camera.
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