AP Editor Damien Demolder comments on the launch of Samsung’s NX10…
It?s 16 months since we first reported this camera?s arrival. It was just three weeks after the launch of the Micro Four Thirds system that the then vice president of Samsung Techwin, Byung Woo Lee, told me about the company?s plans to create a new segment that would enable Samsung to escape the dominance of Nikon and Canon in the DSLR sector. The details BW Lee gave me then about what the camera would be have come true, with the NX10 including a 14-million-pixel, APS-C-format CMOS sensor, a high-quality EVF and video functionality.
Bearing in mind that camera consumers, both of the high-street and enthusiast varieties, have made it plain that they like larger sensors, I am somewhat surprised that Samsung is still the only manufacturer sporting an APS-C sensor in a mirrorless body. Although Panasonic and Olympus have both made excellent progress with their MFT systems, Samsung has, at a stroke, bettered the key areas of specification: pixel count and sensor size. We all know, of course, that more pixels does not always mean better pictures, but when on a larger sensor there is twice the chance that actually it does. What?s more, the sensor of the NX10 is a known quantity ? we have used it before in the GX-20 and found it to be very good indeed.
The pixel count and the sensor size are significant elements here, and I have to keep reminding myself of that fact to compensate for the disappointing lack of real innovation in this new camera. From Samsung?s corporate messages about the wireless home and interconnected devices, I had rather expected more new technology from the NX10. What we have, though, is an up-to-date camera rather than one of the future. Perhaps that is to come.
AP Editor Damien Demolder
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