Samsung APS-C hybrid
Samsung have announced that they are going to make a new camera system using a APS-C sensor, interchangeable lenses and use a smaller body than a DSLR.
It sounds a lot like the Micro 4:3 system but they are reputedly going to use the sensor from the GX-20. This is definitely not a 4:3 system sensor.
Why they would decide not to go with the 4:3 system is unclear. Surely it would be better to have a stake in an open system than create yet another new one? A further system is going to muddy the waters even more for the buying public isn’t it?
I don’t buy the ‘APS-C is much larger than 4:3′ line either. You are talking about 23.4×15.6mm vs 18×13.5mm or 365.04mm² instead of 243mm². While it is larger (1.5x) it’s not exactly like the difference between a 4:3 and a 1/1.7″ (7.6×5.7mm or 43.32mm²) in which the 4:3’s sensor is 5.6x larger.
What’s more, unless the 4:3s system increase the pixel count, the GX-20 will use roughly the same sized photosites in it’s nearly 15mp chip as the 4:3s with it’s 10mp chip. There’s also the issue of lens size, smaller sensor means smaller lenses. The new Micro 4:3 system could offer very small lenses and the Samsung system might not be able to match these.
Still, it does look as if Sigma’s APS-C equipped DP-1 (not forgetting Sony’s ill fated R-1 as well) might be having a positive effect in filling the gap between tiny sensor digicams and the ‘just a bit too big to carry easily’ DSLR systems.
The bad news is that Samsung are going to use an electronic viewfinder, probably using an LCD. These things are historically awful, with the Minolta Dimage A2 hybrid being the only one I can recall getting anything other than a total thumbs-down.
The issues mainly resolve around the lack of resolution meaning you can’t really see to either focus or ‘catch the moment’; combined with the problems of dynamic range. Generally, they can’t show the range of a sunny day at all well and you get either totally blown out skies or totally blocked up shadows. At night or other low light conditions they can become grainy and unusable too.
The Dimage A2 used a VGA resolution viewfinder (640×480x3) and did some cleaver stuff to cope with low light. Switching to monochrome, etc. I actually looked at buying one of these and went to my local photo-store to try it out. I can’t say I was totally blown away by it.
Yes, the viewfinder was usable (just) but it wasn’t an enjoyable experience. You could focus manually, but it was difficult and the relatively low resolution (compared with the human eye and an optical viewfinder) didn’t make it easy to view changes in the scene such as facial expressions.
So, the LCD viewfinder could be really bad news for Samsung’s camera. It’s a shame they didn’t look at using a rangefinder or some other, newer system. On the other hand, they may have some fantastic new viewfinder LCD and/or processing logic to make it all fabulous.
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