Samsung puts DSLR sensor in chunky crossover
Samsung's NX has the sensor of a conventional DSLR camera in a smaller body, which swaps a traditional viewfinder for pure electronics.
According to the press release, Samsung's developed a new "ultra-precise" electronic viewfinder that allowed them to fit an APS-C sensor in a body 60 percent smaller than models similarly equipped. An APS-C sensor, being larger than the tiny equivalents in most point-and-shoot cameras, makes it easier to take fast, noise-free photos. The use of an EVF means the NX has live preview, too.
It'll be out in the second half of 2009. There were no further details in the press release, but photos reveal a hot shoe, standard PASM, scene and movie-recording features, and an AF light. Hell, can't even tell what sort of flash card it uses. It's hard to tell exactly how big it is, too: is this Sigma DP1-sized (yay!) or more like a fat ultrazoom?
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To me it looks like it does have inbuilt flash, the kind that pops up when you need it.
I'm going to be putting my money on SD card.
There is no mechanism on this camera for a pop-up flash.
Some clarifications are in order:
An APS-C sensor is a CCD that is approximately the size of the negatives produced by APS cameras: somewhere around 24mm x 15mm.
While this is larger than the CCD used in consumer digital cameras, it's still smaller than the 24mm x 36mm format in 'full-frame' ('double-frame' if you're really an old timer) 35mm cameras - digital or film.
The size of the CCD (or film) determines a few things:
1) the viewing angle of a given lens,
2) the depth of focus,
3) the cost.
1) The larger the CCD the wider the viewing angle, for the same lens. The rule of thumb is that the length of the diagonal is called the 'normal' lens. Shorter than this 'normal', the lens is called wide-angle. Longer, telephoto. (Assuming that the lens' optics can cover the whole area.)
1a) The need for shorter lenses (because of the smaller-than-full-frame CCD) combined with the longish back focus needed so that there's room for the mirror means that wide angle lenses are more expensive.
2) Depth of focus is the equivalent of depth of field (Oh, go look it up!) but at the film/CCD plane.
I won't bother explaining in great technical details why but: smaller film/CCD = shorter lenses = less depth of focus = great mechanical precision needed for sharp images. Big film/CCD means you can be a little sloppy with the focus - Picture an old large-format camera, or an enlarger.
3) Here bigger, unlike bikinis, means more expensive.
Personally, I don't know why the traditional camera manufacturers persist in using a reflex viewfinder system rather than using the CCD's data for the viewfinder.
By not using a reflex mirror system:
i) the cameras are a lot quieter;
ii) they'd be able to use lenses with a shorter back-focus (thereby freeing up lens designers) (This is already being done) and
iii) they'd be able to encase the CCD in an air-tight clear box with the outside surface, say, 1cm above/away from the CCD's surface - that that you actually be able to clean without damaging the CCD.
As well, if there was a little dust or a tiny scratch on the surface of the CCD-encasing box, it'd be so out of focus (see #2 above) that it wouldn't affect the image.
All of which would make the camera more forgiving, more rugged, more useful.
The flash popup button is clearly visible on the last image top right-hand side of the device above the 'NX' badge. As for storage my guess would be SD too.
The reason they have been slow in going to EVF, is mostly because of low light focusing ability. Since a big reason people buy DSLRs is low light ability, well it makes sense that MFGs. would be cautious about impairing that.
Also until relatively recently DSLR CCDs didn't have "live View" and thus were unable to drive an EVF at all.
Hey Kids! Wanna Cam that Looks like an SLR but none of the awesome capabilities?
>but no built-in flash
and the strange button with a light?
and the strange cut over the "samsung" engraving?
PRO:
- no retrofoscus wide lens
- can mount leica - M/L lens via adapter.
CONS:
- need telecentric lens
- only contrast based autofocus
There's an internal pop-up flash, at least in this prototype--the release button is on the top in the left-hand corner.
PaulR, you've got your depth-of-field idea backwards: shorter lenses will give greater DOF for a given aperture than a longer lens. A point-and-shoot with a tiny sensor and f/4.5 lens barely needs an AF system at all. Remember all the disposable cameras with fixed-focus lenses?
The other reason DSLRs haven't used electronic view finders is the legacy glass: all the existing lenses in the world have enough space to use the mirror...which leads me to the most interesting feature on this prototype: the button that looks suspiciously like a lens release. Will this be an interchangeable-lens body? There's a lot of interest in a small, quiet, Leica-like camera. I know I'd probably buy one.
Looks pretty sharp. I agree that this definitely appears to have inbuilt flash... So long as it's running SDs, I'd definitely be interested...
Why is the lens so small when the lens housing is so big? Do the buttons in front near the lens allow you two remove the lens, and replace it with a normal standard SLR lens?
Fixed the post! Thank you. I am blind.
This is nothing revolutionary, but it is interesting validation.
Panasonic makes a camera just like this. It's called the Lumix G1. Samsung decided to play as well, and like Panasonic, kept the same sensor size as their DSLRs. (For those not playing the home game, Pentax and Samsung have a very close relationship, and Samsung sells DSLRs that are nearly identical to Pentax models)
The two buttons around the lens are almost certainly a bayonet release and DOF preview. Interchangeable lenses are further suggested by the lack of a zoom control on the camera.
It clearly does have a pop-up flash. Hot shoes are a standard, so if you were so inclined, you could figure out exactly how big it is. Roughly speaking, it's the same size as a Panasonic G1, but with a somewhat larger sensor.
The lens shown on the camera looks like a 'pancake' normal. These have roughly the same field of view as human vision (equivalent to a 50mm on a 35mm camera), and are often not terribly fast. (f/2.8 is common). They are, however, extremely small, and thus serve to make the whole camera look tiny. It's also no coincidence that Pentax is famous for pancake lenses.
Oh, and given the G1-ish size, that door could only cover an SD slot. Also consistent with Pentax/Samsung DSLRs.
"Looks like an SLR but none of the awesome capabilities?"
High image quality from a camera that is small enough to always be unobtrusively in hand is an awesome capability IMO. I want something that is sized and works like a Leica M8 but costs $300. The Canon G series are not an acceptable substitute in my view.
@Hotpants:
I'd suggest you give the Canon G series another chance, the G10 is a very different camera than the G7 and G9.
But I'd really look carefully at the Panasonic LX3. Leica doesn't call their badge-engineered version "Son of M8" for nothing.
"I'd suggest you give the Canon G series another chance, the G10 is a very different camera than the G7 and G9."
Yes, for one, the G9 is arguably a better camera than the g10. Price both on Amazon.
...The only downside to having a camera with no moving parts is that for those of us who grew up with 35mm SLRs and learned to tell by the click-whirrr-CLUNK whether the shot actually went off, the silent cameras just don't do it for us. On the other hand, Canon deliberately designed the early EOS Digital Rebels so that this one support pin on the mirror assembly would shear if you did a lot of rapid-fire shots with it, and the pin had about a 14 month life expectancy where the camera only had a year warranty. Both my 300s had this happen to them twice, and both of the 2nd times Canon raped me for $250 a pop just to replace a goddamn plastic pin. I now know how to replace that pin with a paper clip and a drop of non-gassing epoxy if necessary, but it's still a scam they didn't need to pull on their customers, especially when this camera performed as well as it does.
(Chunked up into three pieces, so I don't choke the boinboing comment cgi doohikey)
Anonymous @9:
Depth of focus, not depth of field.
Inexpensive fixed focus cameras do rely on depth of field: they use shorter focal length lenses and small apertures, and set the focussed distance at roughly a typical indoor shooting distance (to which the built-in flash is matched, as per the aperture), say three meters. By using shorter lenses, they can force you to get closer to the subject; so they don't have to use such a strong flash...
Depth of field is 'measured' at the subject. It's the zone of acceptably sharp focus in the subject.
It increases with: shorter focal lengths, smaller apertures, greater lens to subject distances. Oh, and when you don't enlarge the resulting image so much.
Depth of focus is 'measured' at the image recording plane, that is the film, the CCD, etc.
It increases with:
Longer focal length, smaller apertures, greater lens to image (film or CCD) distances. Ditto here, about enlarging the image.
(Part two of three)
To use the correct terminology: the apparent zone of sharp focus is result of the size of the circle of confusion being below some acceptable value. If you think of 'objective' lens (the one mounted on the camera) as the light source (from the point of view of the film/CCD), it's a little easier to understand.
Say you've got the lens focussed on your friend one meter away. The light coming from the tiny specular highlight off of her eyeglasses radiates out in all directions. The camera's lens intercepts a disk of light from it and focusses that disk of light back into a point at the distance where, you hope, the film/CCD is.
Think the cone described from the point of light on her glasses to the first hunk of glass on the lens. Actually, since the diaphragm's aperture cuts the size of this disk, think of this cone: the point that is the glasses' highlight to the disk which is the aperture. Got it? Good.
Now picture the cone of light coming from the back of the lens to the film; disk at the back of the lens, point exactly where the film/CCD is.
A point of light coming from the glasses, spreading out to a cone who's base is the size of the aperture on the lens, then converging back to a point on the film/CCD.
Now, a thing is out of focus, on the film/CCD, when the point-source of light from the lens doesn't converge into a back into a point. That is, the film/CCD intersects that cone not at the apex (where it's a point), but a little before or a little after - where the intersection is a circle. This circle is called the 'circle of confusion'. Aptly named...
If you considered a specular highlight coming from her nose (a few cm closer) the highlight would come into focus at a point behind where the film/CCD is. It would intercept the cone where it's still a circle.
So:
When you use a smaller aperture: The cone coming from the back of the lens is skinnier. So even if though the film/CCD intersects it at the wrong place, the resulting circle is smaller. So it appears sharper. You've increased the depth of focus (and the depth of field).
Suppose you use a shorter lens: The cone from the back of the lens is much shorter (er, by definition..) and the rate of change of diameter of the circle of confusion is higher (think of a wide squat cone). So, at a tiny distance from 'correct distance', the circle of confusion is now unacceptably large - where it's considered out of focus. YOu have less depth of focus. Short lenses required very precise lens to film/CCD distances - little depth of focus. Counter intuitive, no?
Long, really long, lenses make long skinny cones. It almost doesn't matter if the film/CCD isn't in the right place, it'll intersect the cone where it's still a small circle. Large format camera's film could droop a little (say, when it's pointing down) and it wouldn't affect the focus any.
Now:
When you use short lenses, the length of the cone, from lens to film/CCD, doesn't change much. With a 30mm lens, if your subject moves from 40 meters away to 5 meters away, the cone at the back of the lens only changes from some 31 mm long to, I quessing here, 33 mm long. So from 7 to 4 meters, the length of cone doesn't change much. The film intersects it at pretty much the right distance: lots of depth of field.
If your lens was a 300mm lens, that same trip from 40 meters to 5 meters causes the cone to go from roughly 305mm long to 325mm long! A short change of distance, and the film is at the wrong place, by a lot: no depth of field.
If you've ever done macro-photography, where the lens-to-subject and lens-to-image distances are roughly equal, you might have noticed that you have to move the lens a lot to find that atom-thin plane of sharp focus. No depth of field, lots of depth of focus.
However:
If you don't enlarge the film/file much, the circle of confusion remains small. That why, even though an '8x10' camera is using a very long lens (300mm is the 'normal' lens for 8x10 film), the camera still has 'normal' depth of field: it's because the negative isn't enlarge much, if any!...
And: if you stand far away enough from the print, the circles of confusion are small (as measured as arcs from your eyes) and the depth of field seems to increase...
It'll be a cold day in hell when I get photo facts wrong. :-)
OK, it's got a movie mode. Let's assume it's at least 720p. Maybe even 1080i. If we're very lucky, it's 1080/24p. In theory, an APS-C sensor can shoot HD video that will rival the Canon HV-30s of the world.
So where's the external mic jack? Or at least a hotshoe-mounted shotgun?
These new hybrid cameras are one killer feature away from eliminating the need for dedicated video cams. Give us external audio and be done with it already!
>>> It'll be a cold day in hell ...
That explains the ferocious blizzard that's been trashing the East coast lately.
So this is pretty much the same as the Micro Four Thirds system, right? Except the crop factor is a little different and the lens mount is a little different.
Like comment #4, I think the mirror might not be worthwhile much longer. When shooting with big telephoto lenses I like a big SLR in my hand, but while at social gatherings with a wide zoom I definitely would not mind something more compact. Without a mirror (and with a lens mount smaller than those on current SLRs), the camera and lens can be shrunken down quite a bit, AND still keep a decent-sized sensor (the key feature that non-SLR cameras lack).
I do hope that this and the Micro Four Thirds system catch on. I see the potential for images of far higher quality (especially when at non-minimum ISOs) than those taken by any current camera that fits in a jacket pocket. And yes, I too have an LX3...
This is exactly why I buy Samsung & Pentax.
This is to me the best sensor in the most compact form factor I can afford. I bought a Pentax K10D & their pancake 21mm lens last year for my photojournalism job and took pictures I'd NEVER have been able to take with either a hulking SLR and a giant 14" long wide-angle lens OR a compact with a slow shutter-response time and small sensor that overexposes everything. And I haven't invested in Panasonic because their sensors (4/3 and micro4/3) are just too small and their viewfinders are so dark and tiny, they make me feel like I'm looking down a tunnel. Or worse at an LCD screen. An EVF may one day trump my glass, mirror and prism, but that day has not arrived. An EVF still cannot compare to the speed and clarity of glass, allowing me to compose a shot faster and more fluid.
Aside from getting rich enough to drop a small fortune on a Leica system, Pentax/Samsung will always have my money for camera systems that can go into homes and the street, wherever the job takes me, not just to landscapes with a tripod. I work with a Nikon D3x (the system of my employer) and its size, weight, and Nikon's insistance on designing giant lenses makes it a horrible choice to shoot anything besides spy-shots or landscapes.
I have never, even with my rangefinders, been as confident with any other camera as I am in my Pentax's flexibility with all types of photography.