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Sony will get a new major competition soon!


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Thank you Andrea.

 

The recent Samsung news/rumours being:

- Samsung are fading out their digital camera business
- Samsung will make a major statement at the CES event in early January

and Sony putting a lot of money in and marketing emphasis on their Alpha 7(x) series, one can imagine that Samsung's statement will be about selling the intellectual property related to their digital camera business and that the acquirer ("a major competitor, not a niche competitor") will use it to produce a 24x36 mirrorless system.

Canon relying on the EF-M mount for APS-C and soon 24x36 mirrorless cameras, who will be this major competitor? Nikon? Ricoh? A newcomer?

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That is exciting news. Some competition is always healthy.

 

Although I wonder what Samsung's agenda might be here. If they do stop their "digital camera business" what's in it for Samsung?

Sensors? Samsung already has profound expertise in that area... but it wouldn't make much sense to limit that to E-mount systems.

Lenses? I have no idea how big (or any good) the Samsung lenses business is... but it's a growing market for sure.

Maybe they join forces now that Samsung factories are out of work? Surely Samsung will have a plan for them...

 

Damn I'm excited. Even made me register to this forum.

For what it's worth... I bought an A7ii just yesterday. Don't make me regret it! 

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[...] selling the intellectual property related to their digital camera business and that the acquirer ("a major competitor, not a niche competitor") will use it to produce a 24x36 mirrorless system.

Canon relying on the EF-M mount for APS-C and soon 24x36 mirrorless cameras, who will be this major competitor? Nikon? Ricoh? A newcomer?

 

Of course this is the ultimate goal for virtually any camera maker. FF mirrorless.

Samsung selling intellectual property? Yes, definitely an option. Although I think they will still invest in sensors and optics (at least at a smart phone level).

 

I highly doubt the competitor is Nikon. They are probably already highly invested in the mirrorless/ff area. Same goes for Canon.

Pentax/Ricoh sounds like a smart idea... or maybe someone from the MFT department? :)

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(...)

 

Although I wonder what Samsung's agenda might be here. If they do stop their "digital camera business" what's in it for Samsung?

Sensors? Samsung already has profound expertise in that area... but it wouldn't make much sense to limit that to E-mount systems.

Lenses? I have no idea how big (or any good) the Samsung lenses business is... but it's a growing market for sure.

Maybe they join forces now that Samsung factories are out of work? Surely Samsung will have a plan for them...

(...)

 

Indeed a mere divestment, which is always admitting a failure of some sort, is not something justifying Samsung rolling the big drums at CES. There has to be something Samsung can put forward, something big: a partnership with a recognised name / Samsung contributing their photo business and receiving a stake in the other company in exchange / the other company exclusively procuring their sensors from Samsung from now on, something like that.

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I thought they were launching cars next :P

FF mirrorless is somewhat expensive... even more with an apple logo on top. And certainly pro and/or enthusiast oriented. In the more recent past Apple was always targeting big consumer markets, not professionals.

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Or a total newcomer. CES being the Consumer Electronics Show, the buyer should be somebody with a big name in consumer electronics.

 

If it weren't for the fierce competition between the two, I would have said Apple.

 

Panasonic. After all they are already "in bed" with Leica for the glass, and they make good m4/3 cameras, so should they manage to get good FF sensors they could become a serious competitor for Sony.

 

Should this be the case, at that point for CaNikon IMHO will be too late*, and the market will be basically divided among Sony, Fuji and Panasonic, with Leica as a niche company like always was.

 

 

*Remember than you need several generations to make a FF mirrorless capable of battling with a mature product like an A7 series one; while Panasonic already has the know-how (just limited to a smaller sensor), Nikon and Canon would start basically from scratch

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Guest Peter Kelly

What I do like is the speculation about the mount. No matter what Nikon do there will be some who are left unhappy and light up the internet with another 'A mount versus E mount' type squabble!

 

If they stick with a Nikon mount, the Samsung owners will feel deserted; if they use the Samsung mount all hell will break out amongst Nikon owners! Of course, the same hell will happen from both sides if Nikon designs something new!

Oh, joy...

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What I do like is the speculation about the mount. No matter what Nikon

do there will be some who are left unhappy and light up the internet with

another 'A mount versus E mount' type squabble!

 

..............

   

Nikon can very well produce an FE mount camera plus their own

version of the Sony LA-E adapters, except I spoze we'd call them

LA-F adapters.You'd have a system thaz both FE and NF mount. 

  

Plus, acoarst being FE mount means that aside from Nikon's own

premium adapters, you can use Canon EF lenses via Metabones,

etc. Think of that. Canon can shrug off us Sony users adapting EF

lenses, cuz we're just the lunatic fringe. But the sight of Canon EF

lenses, fully functional, on Nikon branded camera bodies. It's such

a slap at Canon that maybe Nikon would make their own premium

LA-EF adapter. Yeah, I know ... pigs will fly before that happens.

But Metabones et al will surely go for it.  

   

OKaaaaay ..... so picture it this way: 

 

Sony's A9 will be the new A99, IOW both FE mount and A mount.

  

Nikon's new Samsung will parallel the A9 concept, except it will

be both FE mount and NF mount.

  

Then Canon will HAVE TO join the party, ditch the M-series, and

Canon's version of the A9 will be both FE mount and EF mount.

   

Acoarst Fuji has no FF series, so they will maybe hafta play some

catch-up. You can't sell 16mp APS format forever ....

  

`

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  • 2 weeks later...

Wonder there is no word about Olympus anymore.... ??? Will they stick with their 4//3 system or move forward as well.... time will tell.

 

For landscape photography actually Olympus should really stick to m4/3 IMHO. The biggest problem now that we have sensors with enough high dynamic range has become achieving enough depth of field without incurring into diffraction issues. Once I used to shoot multiple frames to combine them into HDR, now I still have to do the same a lot of times to stack focus.

 

A m4/3 sensor has more or less 2 times the depth of field of a full frame one, but the same light gathering capability. This means you can shoot at f/8 (avoiding diffraction issues and with a nice fast shutter speed to counteract the softness from wind blowing around branches etc.) and still have the depth of field of a lens on a full frame sensor shot at f/16.

 

As soon as Olympus manages to render their super resolution mode usable at fast shutter times (the next E-M1 is rumored to be able to use it handheld) they will become a serious alternative to Sony for many shooters like myself, and with the luxury to be able to carry much lighter and smaller lenses to boot (cheaper as well, even the super sharp ones).

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Dif

 

For landscape photography actually Olympus should really stick to m4/3

IMHO. The biggest problem now that we have sensors with enough high

dynamic range has become achieving enough depth of field without

incurring into diffraction issues. .......

 

A m4/3 sensor has more or less 2 times the depth of field of a full frame

one, but the same light gathering capability. This means you can shoot at

f/8 (avoiding diffraction issues and with a nice fast shutter speed .......... 

  

.............................................................. 

 

Light waves don't change amplitude, even when passing thru lenses,

so diffraction is not dependent on relative aperture aka "f-stop number",

but on the simple physical size of the aperture.

  

So f/16 on a FF will suffer about the same diffraction as f/8 on a 4/3 or

f/32 on a 6x9cm MF. And as you mentioned, the final DOF is about the

same for those 3 scenarios. OK, so far we seem to have violated the

"no-free-lunch" rule, shutter-speed-wise. Since this rule is iron-clad, I'm

left scratching my head about the hidden price of the "free" increase in

shutter speed. IOW, I believe there hasta be a cost, but I can't figger

out what it is. My suspicion is it's noise-related cuz the source of the

"free" shutter speed increase is the smaller sensor.  

   

If the ISO in use is quite low, then noise isn't a problem at reasonable

print sizes. If the cost of "free lunch" is that the 4/3 image falls apart at

3x4 feet size, but the files from larger sensors don't fall apart until 9x12  

feet, then thaz a cost that really never gets paid, in a world where such

print sizes almost never occur.

  

Just thinking out loud ....so to speak [pun accidental, honest !].

 

 

  

`

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Dif

 

Light waves don't change amplitude, even when passing thru lenses,

so diffraction is not dependent on relative aperture aka "f-stop number",

but on the simple physical size of the aperture.

  

So f/16 on a FF will suffer about the same diffraction as f/8 on a 4/3 or

f/32 on a 6x9cm MF. And as you mentioned, the final DOF is about the

same for those 3 scenarios. OK, so far we seem to have violated the

"no-free-lunch" rule, shutter-speed-wise. Since this rule is iron-clad, I'm

left scratching my head about the hidden price of the "free" increase in

shutter speed. IOW, I believe there hasta be a cost, but I can't figger

out what it is. My suspicion is it's noise-related cuz the source of the

"free" shutter speed increase is the smaller sensor.  

   

If the ISO in use is quite low, then noise isn't a problem at reasonable

print sizes. If the cost of "free lunch" is that the 4/3 image falls apart at

3x4 feet size, but the files from larger sensors don't fall apart until 9x12  

feet, then thaz a cost that really never gets paid, in a world where such

print sizes almost never occur.

  

Just thinking out loud ....so to speak [pun accidental, honest !].

 

 

  

`

 

You are perfectly right, diffraction is only dependent from the physical size of the aperture. I was oversimplifying, but now you've just awakened the geek in me ;)

 

The "free" shutter speed, or if you prefer the fact I stated that m4/3 has roughly 2 times the depth of field of a full frame sensor, it stems from the fact that you're not using the same focal lengths to capture the same scene. The same 2x factor applies to focal lengths as well, so you are effectively shooting the same scene with a 24mm on the m4/3 camera and with a 50mm on the full frame one (I'm not talking about test shots here, but about actual shooting in the same scenario).

 

Focal length being the key factor in controlling the amount of depth of field, you get a "free lunch" (that is, if you're not interested in super smooth bokeh, otherwise the "free lunch" comes with full format).

 

It was the same when I was shooting film. Going from 6x9 to 5x7" it wasn't that much of a gain if you weren't super careful because while on the 6x9 you were shooting, for example, with a 90mm, on the 5x7" you had to use a 250mm with paper-thin depth of field even stopped down a fair bit.

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You are perfectly right, diffraction is only dependent from the physical size of the aperture. I was oversimplifying, but now you've just awakened the geek in me ;)

 

The "free" shutter speed, or if you prefer the fact I stated that m4/3 has roughly 2 times the depth of field of a full frame sensor, it stems from the fact that you're not using the same focal lengths to capture the same scene. The same 2x factor applies to focal lengths as well, so you are effectively shooting the same scene with a 24mm on the m4/3 camera and with a 50mm on the full frame one (I'm not talking about test shots here, but about actual shooting in the same scenario).

 

Focal length being the key factor in controlling the amount of depth of field, you get a "free lunch" (that is, if you're not interested in super smooth bokeh, otherwise the "free lunch" comes with full format).

 

It was the same when I was shooting film. Going from 6x9 to 5x7" it wasn't that much of a gain if you weren't super careful because while on the 6x9 you were shooting, for example, with a 90mm, on the 5x7" you had to use a 250mm with paper-thin depth of field even stopped down a fair bit.

Oh Yeah. Maybe it's about time to dust off old Norma and load up some 13x18cm holders :D
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For landscape photography actually Olympus should really stick to m4/3 IMHO. The biggest problem now that we have sensors with enough high dynamic range has become achieving enough depth of field without incurring into diffraction issues. Once I used to shoot multiple frames to combine them into HDR, now I still have to do the same a lot of times to stack focus.

 

A m4/3 sensor has more or less 2 times the depth of field of a full frame one, but the same light gathering capability. This means you can shoot at f/8 (avoiding diffraction issues and with a nice fast shutter speed to counteract the softness from wind blowing around branches etc.) and still have the depth of field of a lens on a full frame sensor shot at f/16.

 

As soon as Olympus manages to render their super resolution mode usable at fast shutter times (the next E-M1 is rumored to be able to use it handheld) they will become a serious alternative to Sony for many shooters like myself, and with the luxury to be able to carry much lighter and smaller lenses to boot (cheaper as well, even the super sharp ones).

Some interesting thought for sure, but if one already has a FF system, then go after a 43 system seems to make little sense, rather the other E mount aka crop might make more sense to accompany the FF system. Instead of 2x DOF you get 1.5 should suffice.... as always trade off. We shall see where it leaves Olympus now in this ever so rapidly changing tech.

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Some interesting thought for sure, but if one already has a FF system, then go after a 43 system seems to make little sense, rather the other E mount aka crop might make more sense to accompany the FF system. Instead of 2x DOF you get 1.5 should suffice.... as always trade off. We shall see where it leaves Olympus now in this ever so rapidly changing tech.

 

An m4/3 system has two major benefits compared to an APS-c one.

 

1) the lenses are vastly smaller and lighter (and there are many more of them, besides, so you have more choices). I bought one for casual (i.e. not specifically photographic) travels and though it is an already really small system I could shrink it even more in size and weight both (for example using a Panasonic GM5 instead of my Oly E-M10)

 

2) Olympus has changed the game with the high-resolution mode, in which the sensor moves to capture what is essentially a Bayer-free image in camera. So you get a 60Mp image super-sharp (much sharper than a corresponding bayer filtered image)

 

Don't get me wrong, I don't plan of getting rid of my A7r any time sooner, if ever. It's just that these are interesting times, and many more options are opening up.

 

For example, I can see myself in a year or so using the A7r for more "boke-esque" shots and carrying for a slim-to-none weight penalty an E-M5 mk III (or whatever it will be called) body with high-resolution mode and an adapter for the same lenses I use on the Sony for when I want to achieve an extensive depth of field.

 

And it will also double as a 2x multiplier (for basically the same weight as a real one) relieving me of the need to carry heavy tele lenses most of the times!

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