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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
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.
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.
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.
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.
All this is possible if you are just willing to use a program that understands the vocal input "Enhance!".
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
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.