Keeping In Touch With Your Social Side - Samsung's Techno Marvel

Coming from an era when I took pictures, turned the roll of film into the chemist, waited a fortnight, then posted the resulting out-of-focus postcard print to my Auntie Minnie in Missoula...and it took another ten days to reach her by expensive Air Mail - well the business of the WiFi -equipped camera and the internet is just marvellous.

Now I can take out-of-focus pictures and have them on Auntie's screen in less than a minute. Her distress can be instant, rather than requiring a month to manifest itself.

One of the neatest contenders for this market is the Samsung NX3000. It has some surprising features that make it somewhat unique. Consider...

The battery is big and the card is small. That's an 8.85 Wh one you see - over double the size in my small portable camera. More shots - longer video shooting. The card is a micro SD size - quite common these days with the growth of mobile phones and action cameras.

The viewing screen flips up for selfies. Love 'em or hate 'em when you see 'em, people are still going to take 'em...this screen turns on a self-timer selfie circuit when you flip it into the vertical position and displays a 3..2..1.. countdown for the viewer. Just enough time to get your mouth set in a funny way.

The broadcasting of the image to your smart phone,tablet, or WiFi-equipped computer is made easy rather than hard. They have put the commands for it right up on top of the camera with a position of the mode dial and a dedicated "Mobile" button*. This is a great step from the business of putting plug-in modules in the side of a camera or trying to find all the commands inside a menu system.

The big three - the grip, shutter button, and video button have been positioned perfectly on this camera - no stretching or knuckle-busting to get the basic operation going. Together with the fact that the 16-50 lens has a good grip and the function button on the left means that this camera is likely to be held steadier than others of the same ilk - and benefit from sharper images as a result. Make no mistake - your hand, eye, and nose all need to be taken into account when it comes to using a camera. Cramp any of them and you will be unconsciously leaving the camera in the bag more and more...

And Auntie Minnie will be the poorer.