The recently announced Panasonic FZ-1000 did shake up the industry by offering a tremendous zoom range and 4K recording in a sub $1,000 package.
And according to our sources the Panasonic is the first non-Sony camera using the Sony RX100m3 1 inch sensor. The source also said the sensor will be sold to other companies too (likely Fuji and Samsung coming as next).
It’s likely that Sony cares more about selling sensors (and leading the industry in that segment) than protecting their own RX camera range. And actually that’s a good news 🙂
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Samsung usually develops its sensors, at least the aps-c ones. Are you sure they’ll outsource the 1″ ones from sony? I find it a bit hard to believe.
Samsung makes way too many products to develop everything in-house.
I have no idea about the sensors, but take for example mobile CPUs, Samsung utilizes in different phones chips from wide range of manufacturers – while also manufacturing and using their own mobile CPUs. The same thing with the smartphone cameras: Samsung phones have cameras made by lots of different manufacturers, including ones made by Samsung itself.
And since Samsung Imaging was merged into their Mobile division, I do think it is not far fetched to think that they would do for their cameras the same as they do it for their phones. IOW treat internal and external suppliers indiscriminately; put business ahead of loyalty.
I agree, but samsung has already a camera with a 1″ sensor, and I don’t think that they could use a samsung sensor for some samples and a sony sensor for others (different performance) without declaring that. So I think that whether they have a samsung 1″ sensor or they outsource all the 1″ sensors in their cams…
Difficult to find out, anyway.
This was to be expected, even though Pana has managed to surprise us few times in the past.
From DPR’s studio test, the RAWs of FZ1000 and RX10 have the same amount of noise at the same ISO sensitivities. Size and pattern of the noise are also very similar.
This confirms my opinion about Sony which I stated on another thread:
“May 22, 2014 23:17, RAW JAW said:
This is why I learned and decided a long time ago not to invest in Sony gear due to their required OEM commitments such as to Nikon and now Fuji.
One example is Sony required one to use their proprietary flash units as a means of giving spac…”
I am not saying that I would not buy a camera because it has a Sony sensor,
I just wont buy a Sony camera for this reason.
Yeah, I mean, I just don’t know how I continue to make photographs with a Sony camera.
I would much rather use a camera that depended on another company for their sensors.
Wonder if the next gen Nikon 1 products will feature the same Sony sensor of if they’ll continue to work with Aptina which was recently purchased by ON Semiconductor.