Samsung NX1 Flash

Exposure and Range
Good flash range but with somewhat narrow coverage. Average exposure compensation required.

Coverage. Flash coverage from the Samsung NX1's built-in flash is a bit narrow at wide angle (16mm), leaving corners and vertical edges dim. The largish kit lens can also cast a fairly large shadow at wide angle, even without the hood as seen above. Narrow coverage isn't unusual, though (the flash's lens panel is usually optimized for a tradeoff between range and coverage), and some of the corner fall-off is from the lens itself. We no longer test coverage at telephoto, as wide angle is always worst-case.

Exposure. Our Indoor Portrait test scene is well-exposed with +0.7 EV exposure compensation, which is the average for this shot. (Actually, it's likely better than average performance as we accidently took this shot at an aperture of f/8 instead of our standard of f/4, which cuts flash range in half.) The NX1's Slow-Sync flash mode produced a bright image at the default exposure setting, with a strong pinkish cast from the ambient room lighting from the longer 1/10s exposure.

Manufacturer Specified Flash Test. The Samsung NX1's built-in flash is rated at a Guide Number of 11 meters at ISO 100. That works out to a distance of about 10.3 feet at f/3.5 and ISO 100. In the shot above, the NX1 produced a bright target with those settings, so we'd say Samsung's Guide Number rating is credible.