Fujifilm and Olympus have been hard at work lately bringing the beauty of film cameras to the world of digital. Perhaps sensing a new trend, Samsung wants in: the company is planning to release a “retro” mirrorless camera of its own. Sadly, it’s effort pales in comparison to what the other manufacturers are doing. Rather than imitate rangefinder cameras (e.g. Fujifilm X-Pro1 and the Leica M9) or resurrect old film SLR designs (e.g. the Olympus OM-D), Samsung has seemingly decided that retro camera designs can be boiled down to one thing: silver-colored top plates. This Saturday, Samsung will be announcing a “retro” version of the NX200 called the NX200 RS. The only thing that differs from the standard model is a silver top plate.
Major camera makers including Olympus, Samsung and Sony have all filed patents in recent days for liquid lens technology. Unlike traditional glass lenses, liquid lenses don’t have any moving parts. Instead, liquid is used to focus light, and different voltages are applied to the liquid to change the shape of the liquid, thereby controlling the image. In the video above, techie Ben Krasnow introduces the technology, and then shows off a device he made by ripping a liquid lens out of a USB webcam.
Samsung made this creative paper camera ad a couple years ago to promote its WB500 compact camera. The magical pencil in the ad would be one heck of a camera accessory.
With the success of the Fujifilm X100, camera companies are starting to realize that consumers love both the design of old school cameras and the ease of shooting digital. Samsung may be looking to join the retro party — the latest rumor to hit the Internet is that Samsung is planning a X100-style camera called the R1… with interchangeable lenses! Read the rest of this entry »
Samsung’s DualView feature adds a small LCD screen to the front of compact cameras for self-portraits, but why use a small screen when you can use the screen on the back? Announced today, the company’s new MultiView MV800 camera has a large 3-inch touchscreen on the back that can flip up 180-degrees, letting narcissists users view it from the front (or above, or below). No word on when it will be released, but the 16MP camera will be priced at $280 when it is. Read the rest of this entry »
Samsung has announced its new mirrorless NX200, a year after introducing the NX100. The flat and smooth body has been replaced with a more ergonomic design, which the company reportedly describes as “retro modern”. Inside, you’ll find a powerful 20.3 megapixel APS-C sensor, which shoots 7fps in burst mode, records 1080p30 HD video, and boasts an ISO range of 100-12800. There’s no viewfinder, but on the back you’ll find a large 3-inch display. Read the rest of this entry »
Talk about a Kodak acquisition seems to be heating up as giant tech companies — including Google, Microsoft, and Apple — continue to engage in a patent-hoarding war. Just two days ago, Google agreed to acquire Motorola for $12.5 billion in order to snatch up the roughly 25,000 patents owned by the handset maker. Bloomberg writes that the patents held by Kodak may be worth five times more than the company itself, making it a prime acquisition target:
If Kodak’s patents can command $3 billion, acquiring the company would outweigh the liabilities [...] An acquirer would also be able to sell Kodak’s commercial and consumer printing businesses and the digital camera unit for at least $2.5 billion, he said.
Buyers may include Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, Samsung, the Suwon, South Korea-based maker of Galaxy phones and tablet computers, and Google, according to Luskin.
That’s crazy — can you imagine Google or Microsoft buying Kodak to strip it of its patents and then selling off the corpse to some other camera maker? No wonder Kodak adopted a ‘poison pill’.
Remember the strange boxy cameras that were spotted on Samsung’s website a couple months ago? Turns out they were in fact digital medium format cameras, but were developed for “internal purposes” only. In an interview with Megapixel, a Samsung Regional product manager states,
We have the technology to develop a medium format cameras but we are not going to do that because this is not our market. Samsung is a manufacturer that focuses on a broad market – we are not a niche manufacturer like Hasselbald or Lieca [sic]. What you see in the image was developed for internal purposes in order to look into future technologies. At this point we have no plans to release it to the public. We have done similar things with lenses – for example we developed a 1000mm lens for astronomical use – but again just for internal purposes.
Hopefully they change their mind — an affordable medium-format camera geared towards enthusiasts would be awesome.
A compact camera probably isn’t the first thing someone would grab when looking to make a photo with an extremely shallow depth-of-field, since the small aperture and small sensor limit it in this regard. That might soon be different: a recently published patent application by Samsung shows that the company is looking into producing achieving shallow depth of fields with compact cameras by using a second lens to create a depth map for each photo. Read the rest of this entry »
Forbes released its list of 100 most reputable companies in the world earlier this month, and a number of camera makers made the cut. Sony placed 6th, Canon 8th, Panasonic 13th, Kodak 41st, Samsung 43rd, and Fujifilm 47th. The Reputation Institute conducted the study with 48,000 consumers:
Each company earned a “Global RepTrak Pulse” score of zero to 100, representing an average measure of people’s feelings for it. The scores were statistically derived from calculations of four emotional indicators: trust, esteem, admiration and good feeling.
The Institute also analyzed what it calls the seven dimensions of corporate reputation. It found that perceptions of the enterprise (workplace, governance and citizenship) trumped product perceptions (products and services plus innovation) and performance (financial performance and leadership) in driving reputation. [#]
What we found strange is that Kodak — a company struggling to find its place in the photo industry — placed relatively high on the list (41st), while Nikon — a dominant player — failed to even make the cut. What’s with that?
