Samsung bigwig, 4/3rds a failure?

Bootstrap said:

Weren't you aware that Michael Reichmann's prediction 4 years ago
came true and that FourThirds is, indeed, dead? That makes Samsung's
comments somewhat superfluous. ;-)

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Reichmann believes that only someone using the very finest, newest equipment is capable of producing a good photograph. Too bad all that "state of the art" gear failed during his ill-fated Antarctic trip.
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'I cried because I had no E-3. Then I met a man with no E-510'

Olympus E-410, E-330, Nikon D100 (IR) & Pentax K20D.
57 lenses of various types from most brands.

Trolls trolling...sigh. Still haven't found a hobby?

Samsung makes a little of everything. And they do none of it well. After regretting a few electronic purchases from them--and seeing friends and family have problems too--I finally realized they do nothing well. Most of it looks good in pictures and in theory. But quality is not a part of their marketing plan. It will be a loooong while before I even considering paying for anything with the Samsung name on it.

Jonathan Demarais said:

I doubt they'd appoint a fool to that fellow's position, for all you
"marketing geniuses" who are now second-guessing him.
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'I cried because I had no E-3. Then I met a man with no E-510'

Olympus E-410, E-330, Nikon D100 (IR) & Pentax K20D.
57 lenses of various types from most brands.

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Every HUGE corporation has the equivalent of "the Eastern Front". This is probably not the case here, but you never know.

In any case, declaring a competitors efforts a failure is very uncommon, and the general reaction in this thread is to be expected.

Jonathan Demarais said:

I doubt they'd appoint a fool to that fellow's position, for all you
"marketing geniuses" who are now second-guessing him.
--



'I cried because I had no E-3. Then I met a man with no E-510'

Olympus E-410, E-330, Nikon D100 (IR) & Pentax K20D.
57 lenses of various types from most brands.

Click to expand...

Lance W said:

Samsung makes a little of everything. And they do none of it well.

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they make ram chips and I don't remember them being any wose than others.

they also make flat panels. a lot. and many of them are very good.

there's a lot of under-the-hoods parts they make. I don't think they are complete fools. they may not be a huge name in the west but they do build a few things correctly.

--
Bryan
(pic stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/linux-works ) ~

Pedagydusz said:

It is hard to understand why anybody would want to interview anyone
from Samsung DSLR, and talk about it in the end.
The result is what should have been predicted: not a single
interesting item, unless it is the somewhat hidden denial of the
announcement of a compact EVIL camera being developed.
And on top of it, it beats me why would anybody be interested on what
Samsung has to say about about 4/3s?
--
Antonio

http://ferrer.smugmug.com/

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Gives insight into what their plans are. If someone had said "Sony DSLR" three years ago, you might have thought the same thing. Now they are in a solid 3rd place saleswise. Samsung is capable of getting even bigger, if they do things correctly.
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'I cried because I had no E-3. Then I met a man with no E-510'

Olympus E-410, E-330, Nikon D100 (IR) & Pentax K20D.
57 lenses of various types from most brands.

Nobody I know wants a Samsung DSLR.
Regards,
Alfred

I find that incredible. I mean, their bodies are bulkier than the rest, probably the worst for noise levels at high ISO, their kit lens is comfortably the worst out there, and in general their lens lineup is pretty shabby - you have to pay a lot to get something better than the poor kit lens. They might offer A200 at dirt cheap prices, but the other entry level DSLRs are not that more expensive and have better features and certainly much better kit lenses. Can marketing be that effective?

And I do agree there's absolutely no substance in that interview. Sony at least has produced some good p&s cameras, including the fabulous R1, Samsung cameras IQ seems to be really bad, and they haven't distinguished themselves in any way in the digital imaging market. Don't see why all that blah-blah should be of any interest to Olympus users.
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La vita e bella
Igor

He's a bit lippy; isn't he?

--
Regards
J



http://www.flickr.com/photos/jason_hindle

Gear in profile

If you can find it...

(Actualy I kind of like samsung, but that's not the point)

Hi,

Remember that Sony buys a very experienced camera manufacturer in Konica Minolta- which is one of the reason for their recent success. Unless Samsung do something similar, it will be a uphill struggle for them to compete with the Japanese makers.
Regards,
Alfred

Jonathan Demarais said:

Gives insight into what their plans are. If someone had said "Sony
DSLR" three years ago, you might have thought the same thing. Now
they are in a solid 3rd place saleswise. Samsung is capable of
getting even bigger, if they do things correctly.

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Sony has "solid" third place in DSLR sales with 6% of the market last year. Oh, wait... That is the same as Olympus!

Sony went back 0.3% and Olympus went up 0.1%. That is how solid Sony was last year. I bet they are doing better now with more cameras on the market.

Do you know that Pentax, Panasonic, Sigma, Kodak, Fujifilm and Samsung together didn't reach 5% in World wide sales.

I've owned 4 big screen TV's above 46" and the worst one was a Samsung

A few points:

1. He had to say that - he's from Samsung!

2. Initial 4/3 cameras weren't significantly smaller until the E-400 and its accompanying wide & tele zooms. Even the G1 is only just smaller than the E-420 and actually a bit heavier.

3. I'd bet Olympus sells more DSLRs than Samsung!

4. If I were him I'd be very afraid than M4/3 is about to hit the market before Christmas - maybe a year ahead of their schedule!

5. Olympus have many times proved they understand compact camera design far better than C or N; while one maynot like their M4/3 mock-up appearance, the form factor demonstrates they are aiming to deliver a virtual digital Leica CL - a pocket compact with interchangable lenses and DSLR image quality. And the M4/3 format means they wont be hamstrung by the telecentricity requirements of the regular 4/3 format.

--
Shoot the Light fantastic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X76ZIGQgBWg

They are a consumer electronics giant and I'm always surprised at the number of things I see with their name on it when I open it up (the latest of those being an iphone). You might be right about their name in the west. They have a pretty good reputation in India IMO and I don't recall anything that we had at home from them that was not still working the last time I was back - some of that stuff is probably more than a decade old by now. As for his comment about the DSLR size, well I think he has a fair point with many caveats.

Cheers,
-Gautham

--
C&C always welcome.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gnarayan/

thebard37 said:

. . . in the world of SRs is kind of ironic. Don't you think?
--
--

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Exactly...sounds like sour grapes to me.

--
Keep your lens clean and your mind open.

http://www.pbase.com/peterb/

Well I think the 4XX series is a pretty darn good size and I don't think any Pentax/Samsung bodies are smaller including the K-m (do they make a Samsung version of that?). That said a lot of systems do have compact primes, and Pentax is chief among these and they all mount on Samsung DSLRs so that does help with the size. If the tweener really does duplicate the E3s features at a smaller size (and I've only seen the one size comparison so am not yet sure what size it is) that will also shut a lot of people up. Different philosophy with primes and I think we will slowly see more of them from Oly - the zoom range is fairly complete now IMO.

--
C&C always welcome.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gnarayan/

(albeit sample) high ISO images (where, apparently, Olympus dslrs are at a disadvantage) from the 50D and 5D MkII. OK so the E-3 is a big camera .....it has to be if you need a large viewfinder. What the detractors of the 4/3 system fail to tell you is that, the Canon/Nikon and Sony's FF dslr bodies use legacy (film) lenses, which are comparatively massive (like-for-like) to the equivalent Olympus 4/3 lenses, and the images they produce (due to peripheral softness) have to be cropped. FF cameras are bulky ... and therefore for the vast majority of potential purchasers of dslr cameras who like to travel, are of no use. FF is not the future of dslr photography - it is only part of it.

http://www.pbase.com/plusiotis

Mr. Choong-hyun Hwang could learn better 4/3 bashing skills from many forum trolls:

Jonathan Demarais said:

"... Four Thirds has not been a successful system; the Four Thirds sensor size should mean that they can make a digital SLR that is smaller than an APS-C camera, but actually the size of the Four Thirds cameras is almost the same".

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1. As far as I know, Samsung and Pentax are selling distinctly less DSLR's than the FourThirds partners are, so to be consistent he must also consider his own company's DSLR system a failure.

2. As to size, he should compare the size of recent Pentax and Samsung DSLR's to the E-420 and E-520. The new baby K-M/K2000 is 590g with battery and the K200 is 690g, compared to 440g for the E-420 and 490g for the E-520. And the longer lenses needed with Pentax/Samsung format increase the size and weight gap for a kit with equal telephoto reach.

And Micro 4/3 has also demonstrated further downsizing potential for both lenses and bodies: the G1 is at the top of the M4/3 size range by having all the bells and whistles like an articulated LCD and large image EFV, and is far smaller than any DSLR with articulated LCD (and smaller than any Samsung DSLR.)

ALFREDUYB said:

Hi,
Remember that Sony buys a very experienced camera manufacturer in
Konica Minolta- which is one of the reason for their recent success.
Unless Samsung do something similar, it will be a uphill struggle for
them to compete with the Japanese makers.
Regards,
Alfred

Click to expand...

They do have a similar experienced hand helping them like sony, except sony bought their SLR line straight out. Honestly I find the Samsung/Pentax relationship very strange, basically making the exact same camera as Pentax with all the same technology, but somehow expecting to grow in marketshare? The representative from Samsung took an even more strange stance, underplaying his own company's value and seems completely unconcerned that almost everyone would rather have a Pentax than a Sammy brand.

Sony's success is a direct result of a huge marketing push and strong, visible advertising. They immediately got their SLRs next to the Canons and Nikons in the big tech stores like Best Buy and Circuit City, and their Body-Anti-Shake made them the better-featured alternative. You have to go looking to find a Pentax camera, and Oly has only recently returned to the common photography store (Ritz and equiv), which makes them look JUST as new of a player in the SLR market as Sony to the average consumer, who begins research about at the time of purchase. Have you seen a Samsung DSLR in a brick and mortar store lately? If you can find one within 20 miles, where on the shelf, in relation to the more "serious" looking brands, was it?

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Evshrug