Samsung NX10 Announced/Previewed

[El Cabong]

Samsung's long-rumored entry into the emerging mirrorless interchangeable lens camera market finally became official yesterday:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10423257-1.html

DPReview has a hands-on preview.

So, a new lens mount for a camera from a company that has little experience in the DSLR market, beating Canon/Nikon/et al to the punch, sporting a (slightly) larger sensor than its Micro-4/3 competitors. Thoughts?

 

[firestarter]

It's all going to be about the price I think.

The camera isn't THAT small - so I don't think they can charge a big premium over (for instance) Nikon and Canon's low end SLRs, just for the sake of it being compact.

It's certainly a more viable camera than Ricoh's GXR, which I think is doomed to be over-expensive.

If Samsung have better image quality than Panasonic and Olympus with their 4/3rds (and they should - they've got a much bigger sensor), then they might take some sales off them - although Panasonic have more experience in the market, and Olympus have a much better brand and advertising. From the reviews I've read, micro 4/3rds doesn't have the high ISO noise performance I would want.

Personally, I think Canon or Nikon may enter the market with a mirror-less 'DSLR', hopefully at this year's CES or PMA show. I wouldn't want to buy any of these until I saw what all the players were going to offer!

 

[compuwar]

Samsung's long-rumored entry into the emerging mirrorless interchangeable lens camera market finally became official yesterday:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10423257-1.html

DPReview has a hands-on preview.

So, a new lens mount for a camera from a company that has little experience in the DSLR market, beating Canon/Nikon/et al to the punch, sporting a (slightly) larger sensor than its Micro-4/3 competitors. Thoughts?

The sensor is larger enough than u4/3rds (1.5x) that if it's a good one, it'll win all the head-to-heads against it. Samsung has really good retail channels, and if they price it right, they'll probably end up in the 2-3% range in terms of market share in the next 3-4 years. Samsung's in way better financial shape than Olympus and they'll do very well in their home market- maybe as high as 10-15% share in the next 3-4 years. That should give them a good base and enough success to move forward. In the US, price will be their main issue, so we'll have to see where they come out. If they can make this competitive with the u4/3rds in terms of price/performance, it's potentially the stake in Olympus's heart unless Olympus had a very good 2009.

If they don't mess up, I predict they'll pass Pentax in market share in Asia outside of Japan, and possibly world-wide inside of two years. By the time we get the annual results for May (June generally) I think it'll be easier to see how Olympus wil fare- but I get the impression they're (quite like Pentax) still mostly selling into a pool of former Olympus owners, not growing a predominately large share of new-to-the-brand customers.

Personally, I'd rather have APS-C than u4/3, and I'm surprised that Canon and Nikon haven't announced bridge cameras with a current low-end sensor- if Samsung do well, then I expect we'll see the field open up as I can't imagine both companies don't have something they can put into production quickly and that they're not just waffling over lens mount issues. If that comes to pass, then we'll see a whole raft of options and advertising aimed at that segment. If that happens, the u4/3rds players are in for a bumpy ride given both company's volumes in APS-C sensors.

IF we're still headed for DSLR market contraction in 2012 or so, then I think Samsung will weather it. A lot of their global success will depend on how they do in the European market though, and I don't know how that's going to shape out- that still seems to be one region where the Olympus brand still has real strength.

 

[gnd]

The sensor is larger enough than u4/3rds (1.5x) that if it's a good one, it'll win all the head-to-heads against it

Looks like it's the same sensor as the one in Pentax K-7, which is not that bad, so the photo IQ should be comparable and quite good. With the Pentax K mount adapter announced it'll be able to mount all the small Pentax Limited primes which is also promising.