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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.
Only gadget guys obsessed with numbers would buy a Samsung camera. Photographers just don't care about nm and megapixels.
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
Don't care, I won't buy anything Samdung! Would still buy a Canon!
Cue the judgemental and rabid fanatics who are fans or detractors of various brands. This should be as good as a discussion on audio quality... :P
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The principle reason I purchased a Sony A77 (over Canon and Nikon) was: I could use my existing collection of auto-focusing lenses from the Minolta days (the ones with a bayonet lens mount). Minolta was one of a few camera companies who made their own glass. To this day I regularly use these APO lenses, and the results are still stunning. So if Samsung offers a body with a compatible mount, I'll consider it.
But I agree, their lenses aren't as good as Canon's right now BUT if Samsung sold their sensors to 3rd parties like Sony...
I'm sure Samsung will sell some sensors to someone, after all, they sell parts to other companies so it's only natural.
However I can't see Samsung selling sensors to Sony, it would be like selling ice to an eskimo - Sony is the company that makes sensors for many other camera makers and I sure don't see Sony not using their own sensors in cameras.
"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
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.
Like so many other tech articles this is focused on selling expensive upgrades based on trivial differences - otherwise we'd be looking at full sized pictures instead of tiny crops...
Will be talking out of their ass, just trying to raise a ruckus.
The very first comment gets it wrong: photographers care about anything that gets them The Picture.
Sometimes that means more megapixels.
Other times it means FEWER megapixels but a lot of frames per second.
And yet other times it is simply the camera you have NOW that matters, so a small, pocketable camera (even a cell phone) is the best choice.
Even having the SHARPEST lens possible is not always a critical point, folks.
Here is the big trick:
cameras don't take pictures.
Lenses don't take pictures.
Photographers take pictures, and use various tools that capture data to do so.
Back in the film days it was analog data and the entire process was far more expensive, and the tools were... trickier to work with.
Now it is digital data that we capture (except when using film cameras, of course!) and computer processing has advanced so much that even the truly crappy cameras in our phones are actually pretty damn good for snapshots or even some very nice shots- as long as motion or distance are not involved, or real control over the image data captured is not critical.
What dSLRs still have over every other option is this: control can be yours, not the cameras. Sometimes this is the BEST choice.
What mirrorless has is small size/weight. They can even be competitive on MP, and can do great images. But it is far more difficult to get sports or wildlife such as birds due to less competent focus and slower speeds. They also often compromise the controls too much for easy adjustment WHILE shooting.
Small compacts- yeah, better off with the phone nowadays.
What Samsung is trying to achieve is a disruptive camera- something that brings dSLR-like control, speed and image quality to a smaller, mirrorless camera that also supports interchangeable lenses for different needs while also simplifying workflow.
Nobody has MASTERED this yet- not by a longshot.
I don't think Samsung has either, but it looks like they are at least moving in the right direction.
I'm not ready to give up on my $8k of equipment yet, of course...
Obviously this is not to downplay the importance of hardware and chip design, but it's worth noting that the NX1 runs Tizen, much like their other new cameras. There was a noticeable improvement in their cameras when they switched over. A lot of things related to the user experience side improved, particularly the responsiveness of the device.
channel, you might give bSD credit , a proud member the above is far the BSD license,
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?
Rather pointless fixing edge distortions in glass when you can correct the distortion in the math and crop any edges off.
Maybe when we had optical viewfinders, film behind the lens and no computer in the camera it was worthwhile, but fixing these effects in the lens is pointless now. The computer can do it better.
Also consumer cameras are not blurry across the lens, your once crappy iPhone, now has a sensor featuring one of the best optical stabilizers available, better than DSLR stablization simply because it moves a tiny amount of glass far faster than the larger lens.
The electrical characteristics of a small CMOS sensor too are far better. Your iPhone 6 is on the lastest fab process.
Crap photos, even at ISO100, slow cameras that can only take a few shots a frame, and they pat themselves on the back when they upgrade from ancient chip fab processes?
Notice how the 5dMKII pics are zoomed out? That is because it is a full size sensor. Due to sensor crop, the image produced by the other two cameras gets zoomed in by a factor of 1.6 or so. Naturally, you can see more detail if it is zoomed in. Also, the reviewer is talking about having issues with camera shake while on a tripod, has he not ever heard of a remote shutter release?
It is interesting to wonder how much process size vs. pixel density effects sensor noise, and Samsung certainly has some nice fab facilities.
Still this reviewer seems like an idiot or a paid shill. I’ll wait for something from DPReview.
You WANT bigger sensor sites in a digital camera, not smaller. Smaller makes for crappier dynamic range and more noise.
Someone, some day, will make a digital camera the size of a 35mm film cassette, with a pullout sensor the size of a 35mm film strip that fits over the sprockets on the film plane of the good film cameras. Make it Bluetooth or wifi-controllable. For the viewfinder-impaired, put a display driver on the takeup reel side and a stick-on display on the back; reinterpret the film advance lever action. The utterly obvious stuff.
Why not yet? We don't *ing* need disposable cameras, and there are plenty of good robust ones that will last another century.
sewa dehumidifier for samsung its abit easy to use because it connected with google and this is a good item to use
.. and Canon/Nikon hasn't done much innovation with their cameras if you compare the advances in other technology related areas.
And this is exactly where Samsung can enter the market.
Korea is even making better lenses than Japan is now. Boggles the mind.
Sony's Xperia Z3 is one of the best smartphone cameras there are. Same stacked pixel sensor with optical stabilization. But yep, iPhone does have a lot of nice post processing software in the camera. Particular the software layer of the stabilization is just excellent particular with video.
BUT, YOU WILL BE FLAMED.
See, a lot of the photographers here have a 35mm DSLR camera, and dream of having a full frame sensor (= they are the mainframe programmers of old). And there are a lot of negatives with a large sensor, not least the huge lenses. So they're carrying a huge crap camera and scoff rather unconvincingly at your puny iPhone 6.
Yet for all but low light/high zoom situations, your photos will be better. So just nod at the mainframe programmer and smile knowingly.
It doesn't matter how good the sensor, camera, or lens are really - because the entire non-smartphone camera market is shrinking rapidly.
How can Samsung hope to make back the R&D costs of making even a great sensor, camera, and series of lenses? Where will the customers come from? It will take YEARS to pry even marginally serious photographers away from the systems they are already invested in.
It's like having an ocean shrink to a small pool, seeing a writhing mass of sharks within, then putting on a shark costume and yelling "I'm a shark too!" jumping in the pool.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
Thank god many Youtubers have done hands-on reviews of this NX1 and found it very lacking or subpar.
I will need SLR Lounge to make full disclosure on who their partners are because we live in an era where we cannot even trust Tech/Games reviewers as being honest! Also Samsung was known to fake 3D benchmark reviews so their copycat phones would sell. That's kinda low.
Sigh.
SLR (single lens reflex) has a mirror, with either a pentaprism or pentamirror (where you stick your eyeball) to show you the view as it is through the lens.
SLR = Single Lens Reflex
Technically, this does not signify the requirement of a mirror or not. It just specifies that the picture is exposed using the same lens that is used for framing.
It's just that when there were ONLY film cameras, the only practical way to build an SLR camera was to use a mirror.
Also note that technically "SLR" does not specify the requirement for interchangeable lenses either, so technically an SLR can have a fixed non-interchangeable lens.
But most SLR 35mm film cameras had mirrors and interchangeable lenses.
And when digitial sensors came along, the most compatible way to create a high end digital camera was just to replace the film back with a digital sensor, and all the existing lenses could be used without modification.
Thus the common definition of "DSLR" is an interchangeable lens single lens reflex camera with an optical viewfinder with a digital sensor in a configuration similar to a film SLR.
But if the Technical definition of letters that make up "DSLR" is used:"Digital Single Lens Reflex" even a cell phone can be considered a DSLR.
Almost every device from Samsung I've owned lost support as soon as a newer device/os came along. I would not touch this company for anything I expect to use for longer than 2 years.
So a well funded player rolls out a new camera missing a feature its established and highly regarded competitors have, and a web site gives them a great review. Dang, why didn't I have that domain name! I should write bad reviews of the new Samsung and wait for the next model and ask for a reviewers copy. I ought to get some spending cash then!
This is my sig.
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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. By shrinking the lens they shrunk the glass, and by shrinking the glass, it shrinks the light the glass absorbs.
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.
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
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.
Correct me if i am wrong, but doesn't the "reflex" part indeed imply a mirror?
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
"Technically," you apparently have no idea what the word "reflex" means. You also apparently have no idea what a rolling shutter is, and the "rolling shutter" effect often talked about wrt digital camera video is only called that because the slow sensor readout mimics the same kind of jelly effects caused by a real rolling shutter in film cinema cams.
TL, DR: you are a moron
The "reflex" part does indeed imply a shutter (optional on digital cameras now). But the reflex of a shutter needn't be a mirror.
Learn to love Alaska
christ, listen to people who know what they are talking about. the "reflex" in SLR refers to a mirror.
You are missing Nokia, may their camera phones rest in peace.
In truth, the new Lumias have super good cameras. But.. well, if you hate microsoft and windows in your phone that's kind of a deal breaker.
...or a prism...
I don't see crop factor mentioned anywhere in the title, interesting stuff about sensor noise though.
Interesting that there's no mention of Nikon's top 36MP chip in their new D810.
However, even that's wimpy. Take look at any of Phase One's medium format digital backs in 50, 60, or 80 megapixels, with the world's highest resolution and widest dynamic range in any commercially available camera system. They're generally used with the world's best German lenses, like Schneider and Rodenstock This is what pro fashion, product, landscape, and repro shooters use when money is no object.
The "reflex" part does indeed imply a shutter (optional on digital cameras now). But the reflex of a shutter needn't be a mirror.
This is not correct. The reflex in (D)SLR and TLR relates to the fact that a mirror is used for viewing the scene.
Sigh.
SLR (single lens reflex) has a mirror, with either a pentaprism or pentamirror (where you stick your eyeball) to show you the view as it is through the lens.
SLR = Single Lens Reflex Technically, this does not signify the requirement of a mirror or not. It just specifies that the picture is exposed using the same lens that is used for framing. .
Not so sure about that... depends on how you define the meaning of 'reflex'. The 'reflex' can refer either to the use of a mirror (as in reflection and is the meaning for a TLR) or the automatic removal of the mirror (as in reflex action) when taking the shot. Probably both for SLR and DSLR. Take the mirror out of the equation and you just a SL without the R.
oops...
The medium-formats excel in a studio environment or where lighting is predictable. Not so much in low light levels nor for high speed photography. Two different systems really designed for different shooting environments. I wouldn't dream of trying to outperform a medium-format setup in a studio with a DSLR. I'd get laughed out of the room. lol
:D
Like you said, they have higher resolution and better dynamic range. That comes at a cost though . . . . . speed.
Let's go outside and start shooting birds in flight, or any sports venue and my DSLR will run circles around the medium-format system.
I would love a medium-format camera for studio work, but they suffer from what I consider elitist pricing. When you consider a Phase One will cost about the same as a mid-range luxury car ( $~50,000 ) for the BODY ONLY, you tend to limit your client base a bit. ( Ask Silicon Graphics how that ultimately ends when only a few can afford your hardware )
As a result, I don't even consider the medium-formats a realistic option for me
I'll agree with you though, for the environment in which they were designed, medium-format trounces DSLR's.
I tested a Samsung NX10 in 2010 and was mostly impressed by the LED in the back.
They have a APSC sensor, which is the standard in most amatuer cameras, and that should be enough for most people, except when you want real wide angles.
Lenses are very good (Schneiders I believe) and while the whole mirrorless concept intrigued me I did not buy into it
The images I took that day were mostly of the stuff in the demo day but they were sharp, nice color transmission and the processing (digital) was well done. /post process is better
The 14MP of that camera was enough for me, and there was little moire and aliasing
I assume in 4 years they have advanced quite a lot and the sensor
If they had joined the micro 4/3rds group then it would be a lot easier to compare apples to apples, comparing it to largest sensors is mostly useless.
The reflex relates to a shutter of any type. The fact that at the time the only means to do so at the time the terms were invented was with a mirror doesn't change the meaning of the constituent words. reflex meant shutter, no more. The shutter was a mirror. At the time did they have a shutter behind the mirror, or use the mirror as the shutter? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
They obviously have a shutter behind the mirrors now. But my understanding is that in the Old Days, when those terms were coined, the mirror was part of the shutter system. This means that the "reflex" could mean only the shutter, and the mirror was the shutter, causing confusion for us 10 years later.
That and the point of TLR is that you didn't need the complicated mirror system. The mirror is used to have a viewfinder that's linked to the imaging. With TLR you have separate imaging, no mirror. So by definition, the R in TLR *can't* refer to a mirror.
Learn to love Alaska
This is incorrect. The process is called deconvolution.
Yes, I know about that...
It's limited by your knowledge of the len's point spread function
Which varies per lens and is different across the whole lens so GAME OVER MAN.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Nobody is replacing their DSLRs with cell phones, within some small epsilon.
Quite a few people are, which is why the market is shrinking rapidly. Especially at the low end, which you just said...
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
I've done just that - only from the back row. You can easily attach teleconverters if you want zoom, and frankly lots of people are willing to use digital zoom also. The result you get is much better than the 6x6 pixel thing you describe, even with digital zoom. The fact you can attach external lenses makes a smartphone as versatile as a DSLR to someone that would have only had one or two lenses anyway.
I also have a DSLR, and a lot of lenses. But I also use the iPhone for photography a lot because it is REALLY GOOD at that. Between custom software and an really excellent sensor, there are a number of times where honestly the iPhone is absolutely the best camera for the image at hand, and of course it is always with me which is the first requirement for taking good pictures.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You seem to think reflex has something to do with quick movement -- it does not (in the context of cameras). It does indeed signify the presence of a mirror. In a TLR a mirror is also used, it just doesn't have to move. A TLR is held at waist level, looking down. And yes, the earliest SLRs had a shutter behind the movable mirror, just like modern ones.
This was of course addressed to AK Marc... somehow ended up in the wrong place.
I seem to think it because it is reality. There were TLRs without a mirror. It was *never* a requirement for TLR, just like it isn't for SLR.
100+ years ago when TLRs were around, there were still shutterless cameras. The TLR meant it was shuttered, and in no way required a mirror.
Learn to love Alaska
All else being equal, probably the only reason why I would drop my Sony body and lenses is to move away from a proprietary RAW format i.e. capture in DNG. But creating another proprietary RAW format doesn't look like out of the box thinking at all.
The shutter was a mirror. At the time did they have a shutter behind the mirror, or use the mirror as the shutter?
Wikipedia's article on the history of SLR camera
states:
Early 35 mm SLR cameras had similar functionality to larger models, with a waist-level ground-glass viewfinder and a mirror which remained in the taking position—blacking out the viewfinder—after an exposure, returning when the film was wound on. Innovations which transformed the SLR were the pentaprism eye-level viewfinder and the instant-return mirror—the mirror flipped briefly up during exposure, immediately returning to the viewfinding position.
Now, when the viewfinder blacks out, that means that the mirror has been raised to take a picture. If the mirror did not return instantly, or even worse, did not return until the film was rewound, this would mean that the shutter would be the only thing keeping the film from being overexposed. To solve this problem You could add a film door, and use a leaf shutter, but this complicates matters.
Mirrors are heavy. Shutters are light enough to be moved in small fractions of a second.
In a twin lens reflex camera, the mirror reflects the light entering the viewfinder lens, to the viewfinder screen at the top of the camera. The mirror doesn't need to move. because there's another lens below for the film.
Since the whole world believes differently, care to cite some sources? [Read _any_ book on the history of photography to find our understanding of this matter.] ...) also had shutters, but didn't need a mirror. What is in your interpretation the difference between these types of cameras that made it useful/important to put the "reflex" in the name? The change for SLRs was the _single_ lens, the "reflex" part just stayed the same. Using either term for a camera without a mirror is sloppy usage (nothing uncommon). I can only assume your interpretation came about because someone didn't understand that reflex corresponds to reflection and tried to think of their own explanation.
The term TLR was coined to describe cameras that differed in these two points from earlier models -- i.e. they now had two lenses and a mirror. Earlier cameras (box, viewfinder, rangefinder,
No, reflex does not have ANYTHING to do with the shutter. SLRs have always had a mirror on front of the shutter, the only real different is more modern systems automatic drop the mirror after the shot, whilst early systems had to do this manually. Some systems still allow you to manually lock the mirror out of the way, to reduce vibration when taking the shot. In TLR, reflex refers to the mirror used for viewing, again, nothing to do with the shutter. TLRs don't even use the same shutter system (leaf type) versus focal plane shutters used by SLRs.
oops...
So "reflex" means "mirror"? Every dictionary I consulted, even some printed long ago, all refer to a reflex being a response to a stimulus. Such as a mirror moving by a shutter press or lever pull. It's not the mirror that's the reflex, it's the movement of it (or the shutter, or whatever else is moving in response to the stimulus). When the conclusion you give is 100% contradicted by the words you use, it's impossible to believe.
Unless you can find a definition (in a reputable dictionary) that equates "reflex" to "mirror" then I'll go right on believing that "reflex" means "response to a stimulus", and that negates your entire argument.
Learn to love Alaska
Alright, let me quote the Oxford Dictionary of English:
reflex camera: n. a camera with a ground-glass focusing screen on which the image is formed by a combination of lens and mirror, enabling the scene to be correctly composed and focused.
reflexion: n. archaic spelling of reflection
reflex: n. 3 (archaic) a reflected source of light.
It takes a mirror to be a reflex camera, and it is only related to the shutter in that the mirror has to not block the light to the sensor/film when a picture is taken. Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) cameras use a fixed mirror, unrelated to the shutter. Beam splitter Single Lens Reflex (SLR) cameras like the Canon Pellix and Canon EOS RT use a fixed mirror unrelated to the shutter. Conventional SLRs use a flip-up mirror that moves before the shutter opens and flops down after the shutter closes.
Reflex refers to the optical path to the viewfinder, involving a reflection.
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Some camera manufacturers used leaf shutters in or behind the lens, in front of the mirror, on some models. They included Topcon, Kowa, Kodak, Hasselblad, Bronica and Rollei.
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