Petition for Samsung NX1 hack

[Kisaha]

NX1's AF was the second best back then, not that further away from Canon's, and still I prefer it from Sony's for video (so in my opinion, it is still the second best!). Samsung was nothing to Canon back then, the smaller players were afraid the most (Olympus, Fuji, Panasonic mainly; Sony was worried, and Nikon would have been doomed). Olympus and Fuji haven't the resources to fight Samsung, Nikon can't compete in the new digital age, and even Panasonic is much smaller than Samsung.

Sony is powerful, but Samsung had some amazing R&D breakthroughs, and the capacity to manufacture EVERYTHING you need for a photo/video camera (CPUs, RAMs, lenses, Super AMOLED touch screens, everything). First 28mpxls BSI sensor (A7Rii was the second big sensored BSI actually) etc etc.

Samsung just decided that they didn't want to compete on a declining market, and pro video/photography was a long shot. NX1 was too late in the game.

It is just a pity that we didn't see a NX1mkII, they did the first version SOOOOO good, without any prior real practical experience. The NX team had some truly talented and passionate people (just check some of their older corporate videos), something that a huge capitalistic and autocratic mega-trust, couldn't allow to exist.

[SMGJohn]

On 4.9.2017 at 8:51 PM, Kisaha said:

NX1's AF was the second best back then, not that further away from Canon's, and still I prefer it from Sony's for video (so in my opinion, it is still the second best!). Samsung was nothing to Canon back then, the smaller players were afraid the most (Olympus, Fuji, Panasonic mainly; Sony was worried, and Nikon would have been doomed). Olympus and Fuji haven't the resources to fight Samsung, Nikon can't compete in the new digital age, and even Panasonic is much smaller than Samsung.

Sony is powerful, but Samsung had some amazing R&D breakthroughs, and the capacity to manufacture EVERYTHING you need for a photo/video camera (CPUs, RAMs, lenses, Super AMOLED touch screens, everything). First 28mpxls BSI sensor (A7Rii was the second big sensored BSI actually) etc etc.

Samsung just decided that they didn't want to compete on a declining market, and pro video/photography was a long shot. NX1 was too late in the game.

It is just a pity that we didn't see a NX1mkII, they did the first version SOOOOO good, without any prior real practical experience. The NX team had some truly talented and passionate people (just check some of their older corporate videos), something that a huge capitalistic and autocratic mega-trust, couldn't allow to exist.

Samsung keeps hiring old Japanese engineers, designers and other talented people who are "honourably" fired from Japanese Corporations because the new generation must replace the old.
And this is the result, Samsung is destroying Japanese Corporations, Sony fired a lot of elderly extremely talented people and Korean Corporations fished them in. 

Having tried several cameras it seems that Samsung NX1 and NX500 trades high ISO performance for superior extremely high colour reproduction. 
So while having very bad ISO performance in general with huge drops when reaching 800 ISO and beyond, the colour reproduction at lower ISO is superior to most cameras I have tested so far, even the Sony big megapixel beasts cannot seem to keep up. The Sammy's do what other CMOS bayer sensors struggle with the most, capturing accurate autumn colours.
Even Sigma SD Quattro with Foveon censor seem to struggle very hard to keep up with Sammy censor.

[LawDude]

On 9/9/2017 at 6:07 AM, SMGJohn said:

Samsung keeps hiring old Japanese engineers, designers and other talented people who are "honourably" fired from Japanese Corporations because the new generation must replace the old.
And this is the result, Samsung is destroying Japanese Corporations, Sony fired a lot of elderly extremely talented people and Korean Corporations fished them in. 

Having tried several cameras it seems that Samsung NX1 and NX500 trades high ISO performance for superior extremely high colour reproduction. 
So while having very bad ISO performance in general with huge drops when reaching 800 ISO and beyond, the colour reproduction at lower ISO is superior to most cameras I have tested so far, even the Sony big megapixel beasts cannot seem to keep up. The Sammy's do what other CMOS bayer sensors struggle with the most, capturing accurate autumn colours.
Even Sigma SD Quattro with Foveon censor seem to struggle very hard to keep up with Sammy censor.

I agree.  Everyone applauds Canon for their colors, but my NX1's colors look way more natural and pleasant than my Canon 80D's colors.

[MountneerMan]

On 9/9/2017 at 6:07 AM, SMGJohn said:

Samsung keeps hiring old Japanese engineers, designers and other talented people who are "honourably" fired from Japanese Corporations because the new generation must replace the old.
And this is the result, Samsung is destroying Japanese Corporations, Sony fired a lot of elderly extremely talented people and Korean Corporations fished them in. 

Having tried several cameras it seems that Samsung NX1 and NX500 trades high ISO performance for superior extremely high colour reproduction. 
So while having very bad ISO performance in general with huge drops when reaching 800 ISO and beyond, the colour reproduction at lower ISO is superior to most cameras I have tested so far, even the Sony big megapixel beasts cannot seem to keep up. The Sammy's do what other CMOS bayer sensors struggle with the most, capturing accurate autumn colours.
Even Sigma SD Quattro with Foveon censor seem to struggle very hard to keep up with Sammy censor.

I am not a electronics engineer but I am pretty sure high ISO performance and color rendition are not connected in that way. Meaning the camera designers do not get to make the decision to sacrifice the one for the other.

The NX1 performs great (for its age) at high ISO's. Remember this is almost a 3 year old camera at this point. If you look at the cameras that came out around the same time it performs competitively except against the a7s but that is an unfair comparison as the a7s was built with the sole purpose of having high ISO performance. 

 

[SMGJohn]

On 12.9.2017 at 5:54 PM, MountneerMan said:

I am not a electronics engineer but I am pretty sure high ISO performance and color rendition are not connected in that way. Meaning the camera designers do not get to make the decision to sacrifice the one for the other.

The NX1 performs great (for its age) at high ISO's. Remember this is almost a 3 year old camera at this point. If you look at the cameras that came out around the same time it performs competitively except against the a7s but that is an unfair comparison as the a7s was built with the sole purpose of having high ISO performance. 

 

I disagree the Nikons seem to do better than the Samsung NX1, I am talking APS-C sensor cameras at the same time of release, the Sammy seem to loose a lot of dynamic range at higher ISO's, yes its got good ISO performance comparable to most cameras but the colour accuracy seem to suggest that dynamic range at higher ISO's had to be sacrificed, you have to consider that in order to capture more light you have to make it extract less information of course the NX1 has a BSI sensor on the top of that which suggests that without BSI it would suffer even greater, the Nikons at the time does not have BSI but they do have lower megapixel count, 24 compared to 28. 
Cramming lots of pixels on the sensor will also mean its less light sensitive as more pixels need more light hence why Sony A7s is only 12 megapixels, less pixels on a large sensor usually means brighter images. 

Not that I am complaining that much, but it reminds me a little of the CCD days, I just wish the dynamic range did not drop so rapidly when hitting 800 ISO.

[tugela]

On ‎9‎/‎4‎/‎2017 at 11:51 AM, Kisaha said:

Samsung just decided that they didn't want to compete on a declining market, and pro video/photography was a long shot. NX1 was too late in the game.

It is just a pity that we didn't see a NX1mkII, they did the first version SOOOOO good, without any prior real practical experience. The NX team had some truly talented and passionate people (just check some of their older corporate videos), something that a huge capitalistic and autocratic mega-trust, couldn't allow to exist.

I think that Samsung had already decided to leave the camera market when they released the NX1. It was basically a last gasp experiment that was actively marketed in only a few markets as a test. In many places even though it was "officially" released, actually finding someone who sold them was extremely hard. In Canada they issued a press release, but pretty much the only outlet that sold them was not an official distributor. The listed "official distributors" stopped selling Samsung cameras when the NX1 was released, or didn't even sell cameras in the first place. Even Samsung's own stores did not sell them, and the people who worked there had never heard about the NX1, which I found bizarre to say the least. It was pretty obvious that Samsung was not taking the NX1 seriously right from the very start. I suspect that was the case in many parts of the world. They appeared to be actively marketing in Korea and Germany, but not a whole lot elsewhere.

As they say, if you don't try you can't win.

On ‎9‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 8:54 AM, MountneerMan said:

I am not a electronics engineer but I am pretty sure high ISO performance and color rendition are not connected in that way. Meaning the camera designers do not get to make the decision to sacrifice the one for the other.

The NX1 performs great (for its age) at high ISO's. Remember this is almost a 3 year old camera at this point. If you look at the cameras that came out around the same time it performs competitively except against the a7s but that is an unfair comparison as the a7s was built with the sole purpose of having high ISO performance. 

 

Actually, they are. To get deep color accuracy you need stronger beyer filters, but that comes at the cost of ISO performance.

[Kisaha]

@tugela the last NX camera officially reached the Greek market (an EU state) was NX300. But that was the camera that hooked me on NX. Go figure..

[lucabutera]

https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/samsung-keep-nx-alive

[Saddam]

On 13/09/2017 at 5:47 PM, tugela said:

I think that Samsung had already decided to leave the camera market when they released the NX1. It was basically a last gasp experiment that was actively marketed in only a few markets as a test. In many places even though it was "officially" released, actually finding someone who sold them was extremely hard. In Canada they issued a press release, but pretty much the only outlet that sold them was not an official distributor. The listed "official distributors" stopped selling Samsung cameras when the NX1 was released, or didn't even sell cameras in the first place. Even Samsung's own stores did not sell them, and the people who worked there had never heard about the NX1, which I found bizarre to say the least. It was pretty obvious that Samsung was not taking the NX1 seriously right from the very start. I suspect that was the case in many parts of the world. They appeared to be actively marketing in Korea and Germany, but not a whole lot elsewhere.

As they say, if you don't try you can't win.

I would disagree with you on the points that Samsung's own store did not sell them and the employees who worked there never heard of NX1.

I worked at Samsung's OWN store as a sales associate in London where we have seen the NX1 and got trained on it month before the release of this camera. I was the first person to sell the NX1 on the launch day.

I bought the NX1 (display unit) that was being used in the store as training purposes by us and to show customers after the store shut down on December 23rd.

I'm still using it and I bought another NX1 just few months ago to use it as backup or B-cam.

Used the NX1 last month on a wedding. The footage came out astonishing. I also had the Sony A7S II, but it was resting inside the bag most of the time. Prefer to shoot with the NX1 more.

[MountneerMan]

11 hours ago, Saddam said:

I would disagree with you on the points that Samsung's own store did not sell them and the employees who worked there never heard of NX1.

I worked at Samsung's OWN store as a sales associate in London where we have seen the NX1 and got trained on it month before the release of this camera. I was the first person to sell the NX1 on the launch day.

I bought the NX1 (display unit) that was being used in the store as training purposes by us and to show customers after the store shut down on December 23rd.

I'm still using it and I bought another NX1 just few months ago to use it as backup or B-cam.

Used the NX1 last month on a wedding. The footage came out astonishing. I also had the Sony A7S II, but it was resting inside the bag most of the time. Prefer to shoot with the NX1 more.

Saddam, I can collaborate tugela's point. I live in Vancouver Canada and I went into two different Samsung stores back before the NX1 was dead and neither of them sold any cameras and the people working there never heard of the NX1.

I also went into this "pop-up" Samsung tech demonstration in the summer of 2015 and they were showing off all there new high-tech gear (phones, TV's, smartwatches, VR, high-end appliances) and there was no sign of any cameras.

[tugela]

13 hours ago, Saddam said:

I would disagree with you on the points that Samsung's own store did not sell them and the employees who worked there never heard of NX1.

I worked at Samsung's OWN store as a sales associate in London where we have seen the NX1 and got trained on it month before the release of this camera. I was the first person to sell the NX1 on the launch day.

I bought the NX1 (display unit) that was being used in the store as training purposes by us and to show customers after the store shut down on December 23rd.

I'm still using it and I bought another NX1 just few months ago to use it as backup or B-cam.

Used the NX1 last month on a wedding. The footage came out astonishing. I also had the Sony A7S II, but it was resting inside the bag most of the time. Prefer to shoot with the NX1 more.

Maybe that was the case in London but it sure as hell was not the case in Vancouver. I tried. Samsung's stores and employees apparently had never heard of the camera, even though Samsung issued a press release announcing that it was available in Canada and even though it was featured on their own web site (which was basically a copy of the US page). It was pretty obvious that Samsung was making no effort whatsoever to actually sell the NX1 here.

[MountneerMan]

They sold it at several London drugs around Vancouver.

Actually after the time of death was more or less declared on the NX London drugs put the NX1 pro kit on clearance for a really good deal I think it was only $2,300CAD or something cant remember exactly.

 

EDIT: Just to clarify London drugs is a chain of stores in BC that sells everything from bread to computers and as far as I know, they have no connection to the city of London. I just realized this might be confusing.  http://www.londondrugs.com

[Saddam]

Sorry, I won't be able to say anything about Canada or other markets as I worked only at London.

You guys may be right about their decision for Canadian market and may already decided not to continue. That could be the reason the staff didn't know anything about NX.

Samsung even never launched Galaxy Beam smartphone in the UK officially. This phone was sold and marketed in different countries.

It is mostly the son of the chairman destroyed everything after the chairman was in hospital. He made a lot of changes and made us redundant. ?

But, still would buy an NX2 if they ever release it or bring back the NX line.

[tugela]

22 hours ago, MountneerMan said:

They sold it at several London drugs around Vancouver.

Actually after the time of death was more or less declared on the NX London drugs put the NX1 pro kit on clearance for a really good deal I think it was only $2,300CAD or something cant remember exactly.

 

EDIT: Just to clarify London drugs is a chain of stores in BC that sells everything from bread to computers and as far as I know, they have no connection to the city of London. I just realized this might be confusing.  http://www.londondrugs.com

They had it on the web site as a special order, they did not actually stock it as far as I could tell. The only camera from the final generation that they physically had was the NX500, there were the odd store that had one of those on site. They did physically have the non-S lenses to some extent, as did some Best Buy stores (who also sold older generation Samsung cameras, but not the NX1).

I got mine from The Camera Store, which, as far as I could determine, was the only place in Canada that physically stocked them. But they were not listed as an official distributor, I don't know where they got their cameras. When I tried registering my NX1 with Samsung Canada the serial number came up as non-existent, although it did have a Canadian part number, which was a bit unsettling. 

Some other camera stores across the country did have Samsung cameras (and were listed as distributors by Samsung), but they were in the process of discontinuing Samsung equipment when the NX1 was announced. Samsung marketing apparently was unaware of this, or simply didn't care, lol.

One of the places that Samsung listed as a source of the NX1 was a sound store about 20 meters from where I live, and I know for a fact that store has never sold cameras at all, only audio equipment. So go figure.

From what I could see and in retrospect it seems clear that Samsung were in the process of discontinuing their photography business even when they announced and released the NX1. I think the limited marketing that they were doing in some markets was purely an exercise to sell off units that they had already manufactured, but they didn't publically say that because then no one would buy the stock. 

[Marco Tecno]

Yes, Samsung is a case of mismanagement when we talk about nx line.

[MountneerMan]

17 hours ago, tugela said:

They had it on the web site as a special order, they did not actually stock it as far as I could tell. The only camera from the final generation that they physically had was the NX500, there were the odd store that had one of those on site. They did physically have the non-S lenses to some extent, as did some Best Buy stores (who also sold older generation Samsung cameras, but not the NX1).

I got mine from The Camera Store, which, as far as I could determine, was the only place in Canada that physically stocked them. But they were not listed as an official distributor, I don't know where they got their cameras. When I tried registering my NX1 with Samsung Canada the serial number came up as non-existent, although it did have a Canadian part number, which was a bit unsettling. 

Some other camera stores across the country did have Samsung cameras (and were listed as distributors by Samsung), but they were in the process of discontinuing Samsung equipment when the NX1 was announced. Samsung marketing apparently was unaware of this, or simply didn't care, lol.

One of the places that Samsung listed as a source of the NX1 was a sound store about 20 meters from where I live, and I know for a fact that store has never sold cameras at all, only audio equipment. So go figure.

From what I could see and in retrospect it seems clear that Samsung were in the process of discontinuing their photography business even when they announced and released the NX1. I think the limited marketing that they were doing in some markets was purely an exercise to sell off units that they had already manufactured, but they didn't publically say that because then no one would buy the stock. 

I bought mine from London Drugs on Granville and Georgia. They had two NX1 pro kits, an NX500 and a 50-150 S lens.

I also saw another NX1 pro kit at another London drugs location I think it was at Ironwood in Richmond cant remember now.

I remember boardway cameras said they could get them in and would honor the B&H online Canadian list price. Basically, I think they were going to just order from B&H then resell to me for no profit knowing full well that I would likely buy something else from there if I bought the camera from there.

At best buy on Granville at the time they had a whole Samsung section similar to the apple section where they had a decent size display cabinet just for Samsung cameras and lens but there was never any NX1, NX500 or S series lens. The best camera they had was the NX3000 from what I remember and again the Samsung staff there had no idea about the NX1.

 

But yea, to sum up, Samsung did not make a real push in the Canadian market at all. At least from what I could tell.

 

[tugela]

Broadway camera did offer to do a special order if I wanted it, but apparently stuff done that way is non-returnable. I didn't try Lens&Shutter or Kerrisdale, but I imagine they would have done a similar thing if asked. At that point London Drugs did not have the NX1 or S lenses on their web site, although they did list them later. Whenever I looked they were always special order though, with no stock at local stores. Since there was apparently extremely limited (and possibly no) stock in Canada who knew when or if the camera would arrive, so I opted not to do a special order and instead just waited and monitored web sites until someone had physical stock. As I said, The Camera Store had them in stock, so I ordered from them. I did the same for my 50-150mm lens, basically waited for it to show up on their web site as in stock, then ordered it immediately. Even with The Camera Store, they were frequently out of stock in the first 6 months or so (later they usually had bodies or kits available). I'm not sure if it was due to high popularity or them only have one or two units and not being able to restock them readily once sold. There can't be many copies of the NX1 in Canada however.

[Kisaha]

I know from Canadian friends that Lozeau had a healthy stock of NX things.

They had bought a lot of stuff from there. As I have never visited Canada, I know nothing about anything, just that!

[tugela]

On ‎9‎/‎25‎/‎2017 at 1:35 PM, MountneerMan said:

Saddam, I can collaborate tugela's point. I live in Vancouver Canada and I went into two different Samsung stores back before the NX1 was dead and neither of them sold any cameras and the people working there never heard of the NX1.

Just curious, were you at Van Dusen gardens a few weeks back? I bumped into another photographer there and we were talking about the NX1.

[MountneerMan]

No sorry, it was not me. I have not been there in years.