The Korean Journal “NewsTomato” reports that Samsung will quit their digital camera business. Apparently the management decided in July to stop all development.
UPDATE: Samsung officially said: “Withdrawing from the camera business is not true and there is no official plan to stop production of cameras and lenses“. Source: Imaging Resource.
38 Responses
Doubt it.
Samsung, join m4/3 and make lenses like 9/2.8 and 67.5/1.2 and 12-50/4 and 150-300/4, you’ll be rich 🙂
join for made F4/3,lol they was talent on semiconductor that Olympus never had.
look good ,Drop make their “Image” look worse and badder.
let make a partnership,good luck
That is really bad English….
Thanks for pointing that out, Jimmy I bet you’re a lot of fun at parties.
lol,ha ha ha
What???
“Samsung will quite their digital camera business” ??
Typo.
The fact that the two new Samyang lenses announced this morning and dedicated to mirrorless cameras won’t be available in Samsung NX mount, unlike the rest of their product line, is another clue that Samsung could shut down their NX camera business.
Remember that both Samsung and Samyang are Korean companies: who is better placed than a Korean company to know about the projects of another Korean company?
I hope the claim isn’t true, but I don’t think Samyang’s new lenses tell us anything about the future of Samsung NX.
Samyang’s new lenses are fully manual. They contain no intelligence or integration with the body. The *only* difference between the NX mount Samyang and the E mount Samyang is that the bayonet is different and the E mount has an extra 7.5mm of extension tube.
That’s it.
Even if NX cameras had been officially discontinued, I would expect to see a NX mount version of the Samyangs for a while. There is still some install base, and it costs almost nothing to Samyang to support it. After all, they support the troubled EF-M mount, which has a tiny install base.
https://n2b.goexposoftware.com/events/pp2015/goExpo/floorPlan/viewFloorPlan.php
#905
Go and ask 😛
Well, this rumor was discussed on DPReview and I’m thinking that’s fake.
Some good news for Samsung users from DPREVIEW:
It’s seem like Samsung NX1 is one of the sponsors for the upcoming photoplus show in New York. Checkout time out the countdown timer.
And Samsung has the 5th biggest stand in the show.
https://n2b.goexposoftware.com/events/pp2015/goExpo/floorPlan/viewFloorPlan.php
looks like the NX line is here to stay.
so? they have to book and pay for that probably a year in advance.. the fact that they are there, really doesn’t mean snit that they decided middle of this year to drop it all.
Shrinking market, heightened competition, late start. That’s a tough position to be in, but Samsung has plenty of corporate muscle.
I was just thinking of NX1 with hope for some nice super-telephoto lenses…
Nx1 with a 100-300mm F/2.8-4.0 would have been a killer for sports!
I have discontinued Sigma 100-300 F4 and it’s a great lens for sports&nature, but I doubt Samsung will go for such lenses soon.
That’d be nice even if I’d prefer a slower 150-400mm (say f4 to 5.6)
That would be such a shame!
Above all now that Samsung finally got a great and competitive sensor and built a great camera, the NX1!
Well, the strategic/marketing guys made many errors, but I was more optimistic for Samsung lately.
Late start? Samsung was the first with APS-C mirrorless, ahead of Sony, Fuji, and Canon.
Late start for their flagship NX1, at least.
SAMSUNG rising! Sony will stop sensor r+d in q2 2016 due to Samsung’s might
I don’t know the situation in other european countries, but Samsug silently left the camera market in Czech republic.
That would also explain why they didn’t show any cameras at all at IFA this year. It’s not like they lack the space in their hall.
PS: I’m not talking about new cameras but about showcasing their current line up, which they always did the previous years.
oh! that’s surprising actually since they usually announce new camera products at IFA as well.
Didn’t Samsung make the excellent Leica Q full frame sensor? I wish they’d put that into a small mirrorless camera with an EVF instead of doing APSC. Why is everyone but Leica giving SONY uncontested ownership of the FF mirrorless market? The A7x lineup seems pretty well received…
If true, it doesn’t mean they will kill their sensor business as well. The NX1 sensor is brilliant, so I’m pretty sure some well known camera brands are standing in line to use Samsung sensors, even if it’s just for the reason to escape the Sony monopoly on camera sensors.
Again: IF it’s true. We’ll see.
I don’t believe the rumor. But wish Samsung and others would do FF mirrorless.
Samsung made an APSC sensor that was in many ways better than Sony’s 24mp FF, but they put it in a body that had no size advantages over FF..
I don’t wish other manufacturers would do FF, because if Samsung can make an APSC sensor THAT good we could all benefit from the smaller lenses. Have you seen a SEL24240 on an A7? I’d take an APSC every time.
Seriously though if they had just put an EVF in the NX500.. at least that thing is now unbelievably cheap! Much better deal than an A5100.
A great, left side EVF in the NX500 would have been much more attractive to me
The article cites one source (“person related to the industry”, rather than “someone inside Samsung”), who had “heard” about the factory orders, and another source that was speculating on the basis of Samsung’s product announcements. Two more sources speculate that, because the camera business was a labor of love for the chairman, and because the vice-chairman is tasked with costcutting, that the non-profitable division would be folded.
So, really, just one real source, and an indirect one, from outside the company, at least in this article…
maybe it is Sony that is making up this silly fake rumor ?
You do have to wonder..
looking at samsung’s production and announcements so far this year:
1) only two cameras releases, on average between P&S and ILC’s they release over 9 by now in a year.
2) no lenses released for a full actual 12 months.
the last samsung has done announcements in a year was middle of september, odds are they are done for the year, two cameras (very early in the year) and no lenses? hmm you’d have to think something’s up.
For them to hit christmas shipments, distributions in stores and black friday really is around october, so they are running out of time to get anything out realistically this year.
a camera company that releases no lenses in a year?
I heard this unbelievable rumor recently but wrote it off as a joke until the last few days. The rumor was that Canon has a deal with Samsung in which the latter helps the former with the design of their next generation of mirrorless cameras. Samsung has some great camera technology but no name recognition in the market. Canon has the name but poor a performing mirrorless system in the EOS-M series. And far fewer lenses than even the somewhat limited NX. Anyway…Samsung is supposedly halting production of the NX line while working with Canon on the EF-M line. I don’t know if Canon is buying the NX tech from Samsung or it’s just a partnership. Maybe it’s not true at all. But I find it interesting that a Canon exec recently made reference to a great new mirrorless they are working on and Samyang announced new lenses in the EF-M mount but not in NX. Makes one wonder.
Sad, but no surprise if true.
Indeed, I have said in the past that with the way advances and benefits of the ‘latest model’ are pushed by everyone, manufacturers, reviewers, and consumers, it is difficult to see how any technology company can make a profit.
They spend huge amounts on R&D only to find that the result of their work is superseded before it has made sufficient returns. They then have to write off the loss and repeat the process.
As all companies do it to each other, everyone loses.
Shall I be that guy to say that if only the NX500 had a viewfinder…
I’d have bought one. I have an A5000 so I don’t want another APSC with just a screen. Was it the Asian market, or not wanting to cannibalize NX1 sales?
The A6000 has been the best selling mirrorless for nearly two years (at least in the West), Samsung made a camera that was better in plenty of ways.. they have a lens selection that is arguably more appealing than e-mount.. but without the EVF they just didn’t get all the people who wanted a mirrorless instead of a DSLR. These things aren’t P&S replacements, they’re entry DSLR replacements!!
I don’t think Samsung is going to stop for now… But they certainly have to develop new products for their system; lenses, flash and a cheaper body at around 800$ that can compete against Sony A6000, Olympus E-M5ii and Fuji Xt-10
The lens offer that is still very small, I don’t doubt that there is nice lenses in their system (such as the 85mm) and they are all very aggressively priced, but they lack of so much key elements to attract more attention:
– Fast 24 and 35mm equivalent prime (at least F/2.0)
– Fast wide-angle prime or zooms (12mm F/2.8 or something like a 10-20mm F/2.8)
– Something like a 16-80mm F/4.0 lens
– Long telephoto (ala 70-300mm or 100-400mm)