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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.
They are comparing against the Canon EOS 5D Mark II... which was released in 2008. Sensor tech advances at a fast rate, basically being eclipsed every 18-24 months. So the review compares Samsung's latest sensor against a Canon sensor from 7 years ago that is essentially 3 sensor generations old.
Only gadget guys obsessed with numbers would buy a Samsung camera. Photographers just don't care about nm and megapixels.
What an idiot.
Really? So if the numbers look great in the die size of the sensor and the megapixels, but the lenses front focus that's OK? Or they have twice the megapixels on the sensor and the glass is soft outside of the center of the FOV? Focus speed is insanely important to sports photographers. All the megapixels in the world aren't going to change that.
Professional photographers, and most amateurs will tell you to purchase good glass. camera bodies are temporary. Canon and Nikon have the majority of the high-end market for a reason. I can purchase the Canon 24-70mmL lens for around $2K. It will fit on virtually every Canon DSLR that I'd consider using. Anything from a couple hundred dollar Rebel APS to a full frame 5D mark3 for 3 grand.
Will Samsung still be doing that in five years? I don't know. So for most serious hobbyists, to pro photographers, it's simply a big risk. After Samsung has been in the market for a few years, this may change. But not for someone who has half a dozen or more pro grade lenses. You don't toss $20K+ worth of lenses simply because some newcomer to the market puts out a new sensor.
That depends. If you already have a lot of hardware, you're locked in by vendor.
But if you don't, you get another option. That's not a bad thing.
Camera bodies are indeed temporary, but they are still important. I shoot high school gymnastics. During the season, which started a couple weeks ago, I regularly shoot 4000 to 5000 images at each meet, and there will be 12 meets this season. I know my Canon 7D can take that kind of use week in and week out, and its on its third season now. That Samsung may take pretty photos, but it has no track record for dependability. If one were handed to me I'd use it for day-to-day "walking around town" shots, but I won't even consider using it as a main shooter at a gymnastics meet until its been out long enough, at least a couple of years, to have a reputation for taking heavy usage.
Yes, to answer other comments I've seen on this story, when you buy Canon (and Nikon) you're paying a premium for the name. But you're also buying a decades-long reputation of dependable cameras that can do the job and won't let you down. I'm willing to pay a premium for a quality camera body that I know I can depend on. Samsung has a long way to go before it has that kind of reputation in the camera market.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
It takes a good sensor, a good lens, some skill and even some luck to create a decent photo.
I'll withhold judgement on the Samsung claims until the sensors have been properly tested in the field.
That said, there is a reason pro lenses cost so damn much. Five years from now, my top end lenses will still be worth every penny I paid for them, while I probably wouldn't even be able to GIVE away the DSLR body. A whole lot of optical engineering goes into lens design. Especially the high end glass. If there is a cheaper way to do it without sacrificing quality, Canon and Nikon would really like to talk to you about it.
Someone asked why the 300mm/2.8 lens was significant. The reason for it is the 300mm/2.8 and the 70-200mm/2.8 lenses are pretty much lenses that set the bar or standard for optical clarity, so to speak, for both the Nikon and Canon camps.
Yes, tiny sensors can achieve better magnification with less glass than their full sized counterparts, however, this normally comes at the price of noise since you're packing all those mega-pixels into a much smaller footprint. Don't get me wrong, in perfect lighting ( say ISO 100 ) it'll probably make a really nice image. In the real world, however, perfect lighting rarely exists outside the studio. This is where low light capability and low noise sensors pull away from the camera wannabe's. It's more or less a balancing act between low light and noise.
If they want to impress me, show me what the camera can do when the light goes crappy on you and you need to push the ISO above 3200. This is where the full frames really start to flex their muscle. Show me what the image looks like edge to edge when this sensor is paired with decent glass. How's the bokeh ? Chromatic Aberration ? If you can impress me with the first few, now you need to build an inventory of lenses I can choose from depending on what I'm shooting. Portrait, landscape, macro, sports, wildlife, etc. One size doth not fit all here. Don't forget all the other goodies that go into this very, very expensive hobby. Flashes, tele-converters, filters, etc. etc.
Someone mentioned how silly it is to " get it right in the camera when we can do it all post ".
The idea is sound, IF you shoot one or two photos. OTOH, the reason you get it right in the camera is so you don't have to spend so much damn time fixing things in post. So, if you just shot up 1000 images for a wedding or your vacation or whatever, trust me when I tell you that reviewing them all in Lightroom is bad enough. Having to apply various fixes to compensate for silly oversights you SHOULD have done in camera is just annoying as hell.
In the end, it still takes a lot of skill and a bit of luck to pull of a shot to be proud of. The tech will only get you so far.
I think you're misinterpreting the numbers. The market at the low end is contracting because cell phones are cutting into it. The market at the high end is contracting because neither Canon nor Nikon is really innovating much. If each generation has only small, incremental improvements, people are going to upgrade their gear less and less frequently.
Nobody is replacing their DSLRs with cell phones, within some small epsilon. At best, cell phones can replace DSLRs for outdoor portrait photography, when you're within a few feet from the subject. On the opposite extreme, if you try to use a cell phone to take photos of your kid's stage play, you'll annoy everyone by standing up in the front row, and you'll still only get shots with blown-out faces that are six pixels by six pixels in size and so severely smeared by motion blur that nobody would be recognizable even if you could fix those first three problems.... All the while, the parent with the real camera might be taking amazing close-ups with a 300mm (or longer) lens on a full-frame camera from the back of the auditorium.
Of course, half the time, the parent with the real camera has a lens that's too short to be usable and hasn't learned enough about the camera to avoid getting blown-out shots. Unfortunately, some of those folks get discouraged and never upgrade their gear. Fortunately, there's a steady supply of people who can't be bothered to learn the basics, so them getting discouraged isn't a big problem market-wise. :-)
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Sounds like this came straight from Ken Rockwell.
A lot of pros prefer the 85mm-105mm range for portraiture on full frame cameras. 135mm is rather unusual.