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Samsung's Advanced Chips Give Its Cameras a Big Boost
GhostX9 writes: SLR Lounge just posted a first look at the Samsung NX1 28.1 MP interchangeable lens camera. They compare it to Canon and Sony full-frame sensors. Spoiler: The Samsung sensor seems to beat the Sony A7R sensor up to ISO 3200. They attribute this to Samsung's chip foundry. While Sony is using 180nm manufacturing (Intel Pentium III era) and Canon is still using 500nm process (AMD DX4 era), Samsung has gone with 65nm with copper interconnects (Intel Core 2 Duo — Conroe era). Furthermore, Samsung's premium lenses appear to be as sharp or sharper than Canon's L line and Sony's Zeiss line in the center, although the Canon 24-70/2.8L II is sharper at the edge of the frame.
The whole reason to pay a premium price for a lens is that you get better sharpness across the frame.
I'm sure Samsung's lenses are pretty good, but I'm dubious about them until I see more photographic testing over this spec fest which doesn't tell you a lot about a lens.
I have to say Samsung has some serious balls pushing so hard to enter a shrinking market against giants like Nikon and Canon...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Consumer grade lenses are already blurry at the corners. I'm talking about higher-end DSLR lenses, in those lenses center sharpness is pretty much assumed, the bigger deal is sharpness across the whole frame. That's what you are paying money for in high end lenses, not the easily achieved center sharpness but really great sharpness everywhere.
Also there was no mention of how the bokeh was... that's the element that brings people back to certain lens makers like Zeiss.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Seems like Android phones can outspec the iPhone in every way, including megapixels, but none that I've seen have the image quality of the iPhone camera. It's quite embarrassing how good of pictures my friends with iPhones can actually get. Mine are always noisy and blurry. Even with the LED flash. What's crazy is that even Sony, who makes the camera and camera chipset for Apple cannot even get a camera as good on their Android phones. What am I missing?
Sure you can just crop off bad edges on glass. But then your glass is much larger than it needs to be, your lens is heavier than it needs to be, and larger than it needs to be.
"Math" alone cannot fix blurred edges. It can fix things like CA or barrel distortion, but not really outright blurring, at least not to a degree that it can equal the results form a good lens.
Good point about the REAL consumer cameras (like an iPhone) not be blurry across the lens, if that was in answer to my post I should have qualified that as consumer standalone cameras.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
but fixing these effects in the lens is pointless now. The computer can do it better.
You can't fix spatial frequency response with software.
Your picture quality is limited by the worst of the sensor and lens.
There is no use having a kick-ass sensor with shitty optics, and no use having great optics with a shitty sensor.
In regards to the small cameras like on the iphone 6, there are serious limitations in having a sensor so physically small. Having such a small sensor makes lens design for it a great deal easier, but you're paying the price in light collection ability and overall resolution as the system will be limited by diffraction effects far sooner.
Large sensor sites are beneficial in many circumstances, if you have the same amount of pixels in a full 35mm frame and a 1/2.3" system, the 35mm will come off looking far better with a lens to suit.
Why wait?
Samsung NX1 First Impressions Review - September 2014
Real-world test: Going pro with the Samsung NX1 - Nov 27, 2014
Samsung NX1 real-world sample images - Nov 12, 2014
Photokina 2014 Video: The Samsung NX1 - Sep 19, 2014
Enthusiast mirrorless camera roundup (2014) Samsung NX1 - Nov 27, 2014
Samsung NX1
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
I can't tell if you're trolling or merely completely clueless. But I'll humor you anyway.
The sensors have moved on massively since then. CCDs have gone, largely replaced by CMOS, CMOS was replaced by backlit cmos which improves noise response.
Now we have STACKED pixels, with the colors stacked onto each other. Again it substantially reduces the area needed.
1) The only vendor selling cameras with stacked pixel sensors today is Sigma. Stacked pixel sensor today delivers good images in base ISO, and then completely falls apart when you knock it up a few stops. None of the image processor software is ready for stacked pixels either.
2) Stacked pixels doesn't do jack about "area needed." What it does do is avoid the artifacting effect introduced by the traditional Bayer layout of pixels.
We're at the stage now, where those night-time star photos are not as good as my 1inch G7X produces. In a few years time, a 6mm sensor like the smartphones have will be able to do that.
What you need for night-time star photos is the ability to withstand thermal noise from long exposure, which is a different requirement from most normal type of photography. Your G7X, while a great piece of technology in a small package, will get slaughtered by even entry-class DSLRs in situations that really do call for high sensitivity, such as indoor sports.
Then there's the glass, too many corrective lenses fixing aberrations and barrel distortions and so on. All of that glass adding weight, size and cutting some of the light. Why? The camera can do that in software. Ditch the u
You speak of this like it's a revelation, but it's already done in software on many compact cameras, including your G7X. But when you compare the image quality to optical correction, you can tell the software isn't there yet.
All these improvements have enabled smaller cameras, and better cameras, but DSLR seem stuck in a timewarp.
You are happy with an f2.8 lens? Seriously? If they could make a f1.8 or faster lens without making it insanely big, they would. It's a compromise and not necessary with the better sensors/smaller bodies.
1) You need large aperture on smaller bodies for sharp image because small sensor=smaller focal length=smaller aperture size at any given f value=diffraction kicks in faster because it's only affected by absolute size of the aperture. Full frame DSLRs don't have to worry about diffraction until well past f/10; medium format go well past f/22. That's why full frame users are happy with f/4 or even f/5.6 zooms, when such an aperture would be unacceptable in a high-end compact camera.
2) You also need large aperture on smaller bodies for low noise because their ISO characteristics are worse than large sensors.
3) To get back into topic, Samsung lenses aren't much smaller than APS-C based DSLR counterparts, and all of that is attributable to the shorter flange distance. For telephoto lenses there is virtually no size savings.
With respect the the Samsung:
Autofocus: good in bright light, passable in low light, it really is better than the old canons (5Dii) in mid-low light. Nowhere near the newest AF SLRs. There is no good way to control focus in C-AF mode.
Weight: Very nice! Even with the 16-50 f2-2.8.
Durability: Appears to be at or above the 5Diii level. Not quite as overbuilt as an D810. It feels basically like a 7D.
Usability: Complete garbage! Nice button placement but boneheaded firmware. In video mode, we let it slide because the video is so awesome.
Support: 2 Firmware updates already, new ones on the way (sadly these ones are video focused).
Weather Sealing: S lenses are gasketed, body appears robust. We won't know till someone tears one down though.
Lenses: 24-70 eq available and quite good. 70-230 eq reportedly of similar quality sharp and fast. Neither are landscape lenses. 85mm f1.4 (135mm eq) check, very sharp very corrected a bit high on CA but its a system of lenses that are supposed to be software corrected. 60mm macro check. 30mm pancake check. UWA zoom check minus.
Viewfinder Quality: A new standard as far as latency, good sharpness as compared to A7.
Lightroom support out of the box: It includes a copy of lightroom! Sadly no Capture One support other than through an included DNG converter.
At the moment it really is an astounding 4k video camera.
Stills are good enough for events, there are reports of sports working fine if you can fill the frame. Its a PITA for slow fine arts stuff because of wide open focusing and a nerfed AF-S mode.
(I don't normally reply to ACs, but three of you bring up good points, which outweighs the one asshole.)
Actually, no on the toe. Of course there are shots where the gymnast is in a type of pose that doesn't need to be immortalized in a photograph. You'll get that in any sport where the standard method of shooting is "spray and pray" (set the camera on continuous shooting, hold down the button as the gymnast starts a flip, and pray you get a good printable shot at the peak of the flip). And yes, I go through and make sure those don't go out in the wild. But in all honesty, I've never seen a camel toe shot in the schools I shoot at. High school leotards are designed to prevent just that sort of thing. If a high school gymnast is showing toe, then the coach did a really poor job of selecting leotards for the team.
As for the "reasonable suspicion" part, no it really isn't. You'll see more skin at any public beach (and probably most shopping malls in the summer) than you will at a high school gymnastics meet. And most gymnastics meets are so lightly attended that the parents and coaches generally know quickly if anyone suspicious is showing up. If someone unknown shows up and just starts taking photos, someone else is going to ask questions. I started out by taking photos of a family member and her friends on the team 8 years ago, I didn't just randomly walk in off the street with a camera and start shooting. There's also the part, at least in my state, where one must obtain permission from the school principal or the state sanctioning body (depends on particular meet) to distribute the photos commercially. And finally, getting good gymnastics photos is not a cheap endeavor, nor is it something you're going to learn overnight. You're generally in a very large room with piss poor lighting and a strictly enforced rule of no flash photography, and photograph is only allowed in certain areas if you're shooting from the actual gym floor and not the stands. You ain't going to get even passable shots with an entry level camera you bought the day before a meet, a kit lens, and the camera set on "Programmed". A pedo isn't going to devote that much time, money, and effort to something that only lasts 12 weeks a year.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.