Photokina is just around the corner and that's quite visible from the sheer number of announcements related to digital photography we're seeing these days, the latest to join the fray being Korean company Samsung, who's just released its Samsung NX100 mirrorless camera, equipped with the world’s first i-Function lens.

Ever since we've had the chance to go for a quick hands-on with Samsung's NX10, we were pretty impressed with the company's mirrorless offerings, but the NX100 seems to take everything to a whole new level by adding quite a large number of interesting new features, out of which the i-Function lens certainly stands out.

While conventional lenses were passive in controlling camera settings, the i-Function Lens is a proactive lens that communicates with the camera body, delivering enhanced image control with fast manual settings to ensure quick and easy image capturing, and also providing customized settings which are ideal for the lens being used.

The lens incorporates a conveniently-located i-Function button which allows users to scroll through manual settings, and a focus ring which is used to easily change parameters for each setting.

Furthermore, the NX100 also has a lens priority mode which makes switching between lenses easier than ever, especially since each lens is clearly marked with icons that illustrate their main usages, so beginners can quickly understand which lens they need to select for any given scene.

The lens priority mode provides scene options specifically designed for the lens being used, and when users change to a specialized lens, the camera will recognize the lens type and automatically configure the settings that would best match with the attached lens.

Since there's been so much talk about lenses, we should also mention the fact that, at launch, the lens line-up will include a compact zoom 20-50mm lens to provide both high image quality and portability, while a small and light 20mm wide angle pancake lens will be introduced shortly after.

Two additional specialized lenses will be available in the first half of 2011 – a 60mm Macro lens and 18-200mm Super Zoom lens, and three more lenses will be introduced by the second half of 2011, including 16mm, 85mm, and 16-80mm lenses.

Beside this very innovative lens system, the new Samsung NX100 also packs a 14.6-megapixel APS-C size sensor for quality images and a 3-inch AMOLED screen for easy and clear viewing.

Also, the camera delivers a very creative feature called ‘Smart Filter’, while allows users, while in playback mode, to apply seven different effects to the picture, such as the vignette, soft focus, fish-eye, or miniature effects.

As any modern camera, the NX100 supports HD movie recording at 720p, and also contains a ‘Sound Picture’ mode, which can record audio when a photo is taken enriching the experience.

To ensure the quality of every image, even when lenses are being regularly changed, the NX100 also features a supersonic dust reduction feature to remove foreign particles from the lens before shooting.

Last, but certainly not least, it's important to mention that the NX100 packs a very attractive design and should be quite easy to carry around, as it measures 120.5 x 71 x 34.5mm and weighs 282 grams (without battery and Memory card).

It's also worth noting that a variety of accessories for the NX series will also be made available, such as an external GPS unit enabling photo geotagging, an electronic Viewfinder and a Flash module.

Unfortunately, there are two very important pieces of information missing from Samsung's announcement, namely pricing and availability, but we'll probably get that info as well at a later date.  

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