The Konica IIIa

According to two of our sources Samsung will announce the SAMSUNG NX-20 in February. The camera will than be available in April. One of our sources told us that it has a retro Konica IIIa (here on eBay) design with 1.8M EVF, manual control and swivel amoled display. It has the same NX-200 sensor but a better processor and buffer. The retail stores price is $950 only body for NX-20. There will be two new lenses, the 16-80mm and 12-24mm and a new Flash.

Sounds pretty amazing, a sort of “cheaper” Fuji X PRO 1

Photorumors got this photo of the upcoming “Retro” styled Samsung NX200 RS. It will be announced on Saturday and has exactly the same specs of the current NX200. I guess that silver top is the only thing “new” coming with the camera. And I don’t believe that alone justifies the “retro” definition.

P.S.: While the camera might be not soo exiting their lens roadmap is much better than the Sony NEX roadmap.

I was really wondering what happened with the Samsung NX20. The camera name has been leaked multiple times on Samsungs website but the REAL camera never appeared. Today Amateur Photographer had a chat with Sunhong Lim, Samsung’s newly recruited Digital Imaging sales and marketing vice president. Samsung unveiled that they will launch a PRO mirrorless camera that will rival against current DSRL cameras…in several years! No joke

Other interesting info:
1) Samsung will “democratise CSC by establishing a wider range of models for both consumers and enthusiasts and making them mroe affordable.
2) Amateur Photographer writes: “The move is an indication that sales of Samsung cameras have not met company expectations, in the face of stiff competition from other CSC manufacturers, such as Panasonic and Sony.”
3) Samsung says that by 2015 there will be more mirrorless than DSLR camera sales.
4) There will be a new NX camera body this year at Photokina (in Spetember) with new functions such as Wi-Fi.
5) Samsung switched the production to China to lower the costs.
6) There will be new NX lenses this year and they will be made in the new Chinese factory

My interpretation: Samsung didn’t sell as many NX cameras as expected and that’s why the NX20 announcement has been put on hold. I think they are working on a complete new product strategy. This means there will be no new NX camera for a long time now. Bad news because I really liked some of the prototypes they showed a coupel of months ago (See image on top).

P.S:: Thanks TED for sending this!

I have been just told by our sources that Samsung has no plan yet to release the medium format camera prototype you can see on the image on top. The project is still on hold and Samsung is still considering if it makes sense to release such a system. One more interesting backstory: The latest sensor tested for the medium format prototype was 42x28mm big!

If you aree looking for a mirrorless medium format camera than you have to cross the fingers and hope that Pentax will get serious with their Pentax 645D alike mirrorless project hinted a couple of weeks ago at Impressjapan!

A source just sent me a surprising rumor. Samsung won’t make OIS lenses anymore!
According to the source Samsung has a little concerns about optical problems and final lenses size. Samsung will get back to an improved AntiShake system sensor-based used on Pentax/Samsung DSLR. The patent of that system is a share property between them.

I certainly hope the rumor turns out to be true! All lenses (including third party lenses used via adapter) will be stabilized and the size of NX lenses can be a bit smaller. At the time of writing Olympus only offers mirrorless cameras with built-in sensor stabilization.