[Winder]

Me too, the sensor doesn't look good enough. The new Samsung sensor seems better so far and perhaps Aptina may surprise us. It is great that Pentax is not bound to any supplier and may choose the best available on the market.

The Sony A700, Nikon D300, & Pentax K-x all use the same Sony sensor. The A700 is average and both the D300 and K-x are well above average.

The only thing we are seeing now is how poor the Sony JPEG and RAW converter is. There can be a significant difference in cameras using the same sensor. Sony A900 and Nikon D3x use the same sensor. Sony's image processing engine has improved, but still lags Canon, Nikon, Olympus and even Pentax (who also has an average JPEG engine).

[Philippos]

Really - its that good? I mean, how responsive is it? Is it so responsive that you actually have the camera before it has been released? If so, that is pretty responsive...
...

Learning how to read is essential before you start posting...

I don't have the camera. Sony has given one to the people of the Greek T3 magazine for test / evaluation.
I happen to be good friend to their editor, so I "handled" the camera for about an hour.

[rawr]

the [Sony] sensor doesn't look good enough

The only thing we are seeing now is how poor the Sony JPEG and RAW converter is.

The sensor itself is probably fine. Any issues probably relate to all the junk put on top of it, including software, but mainly the hardware choices Sony has made.

For the pellicle mirror in the A77 not only robs the Sony sensor of 30% of incoming light, it also erodes some detail too - perhaps 5% of image detail is lost, one Alpha user has estimated, due to the imperfect quality of the reflecting surface, based on some tests with his A55.

Pentax and Nikon implementations of that sensor simply won't inherit these problems of hardware or software.

[Philippos]

Me too, the sensor doesn't look good enough. The new Samsung sensor seems better so far and perhaps Aptina may surprise us. It is great that Pentax is not bound to any supplier and may choose the best available on the market.

The new Samsung sensor does look great indeed. The ISO 3200 samples are pretty impressive!

I have lost my faith in Aptina as far as DSLR sensors are concerned. Their MT9H004 was promised to be the king of APS sized sensors, but in the end, it could not compete against the Sony exmor. I hope they have something new up their sleeve...

[Emacs]

The new Samsung sensor does look great indeed. The ISO 3200 samples are pretty impressive!

Link please

[elho_cid]

First Samsung NX200 samples point again to a 20MP sensor | Photo Rumors

[Rondec]

The sensor itself is probably fine. Any issues probably relate to all the junk put on top of it, including software, but mainly the hardware choices Sony has made.

For the pellicle mirror in the A77 not only robs the Sony sensor of 30% of incoming light, it also erodes some detail too - perhaps 5% of image detail is lost, one Alpha user has estimated, due to the imperfect quality of the reflecting surface, based on some tests with his A55.

Pentax and Nikon implementations of that sensor simply won't inherit these problems of hardware or software.

I wonder. It feels like most of the effort with this sensor has gone into increasing read out speeds to allow for fast fps in still photo and video modes. When Samsung did that to the K7 sensor, it actually caused worse high iso shooting ability than with K20 (granted, not by much, but still it wasn't a step forward).

As Philippos says, I would be quite satisfied with a K5 super, if such a camera could sell well to the global audience.

[rawr]

Well, I guess no matter how good the sensor technology innovations are (Exmor, BSI etc etc), cramming 24MB into an APS-C size sensor presents some fundamental electrical engineering challenges. So I wouldn't be too surprised if the new sensor didn't quite dxomark as well as it's 16MP predecessors in the K-5 and D7000 in terms of noise and DR.

But my bet is that it will probably dxomark quite respectably (especially in Pentax/Nikon bodies, when they arrive). The dxo scores of it's nearest current non-Sony competitor - the ageing 18MP sensor in the Canon 6D/600D/7D - are pretty poor, so the 24MP Sony sensor won't have to work too hard to produce some respectable numbers.

[Winder]

Rumors have been circulating that Samsung has been showing the new sensor to prospective buyers and the sensor has been impressive. The 3200 ISO images taken with the NX200 are JPEGs and Samsung does not have a mature JPEG engine yet. The NX200 images look pretty good and I think the sensor will be even better in the hands of Olympus or Pentax.

It will be interesting to see what Pentax decided to do. I think the 24MP Sony sensor will be impressive when it finds its way into a Nikon or a Pentax. The micro lenses, AA and RGB filters all play a significant role in the sensor performance. The image processing engine is very important to IQ and all manufacturers do it a little different. Sony might be restricting Nikon and Pentax from introducing cameras with the new sensor until after Christmas to give Sony a little bit of a head start.

[joe.penn]

Learning how to read is essential before you start posting...

I don't have the camera. Sony has given one to the people of the Greek T3 magazine for test / evaluation.
I happen to be good friend to their editor, so I "handled" the camera for about an hour.

Um? I think I read that quite well

On top of that, the A77is a really good camera. It is very responsive and fast. The camera feels solid and the lack of moving mirror gives it an extra feeling of stability when shooting. The 12fps is both a joy and a letdown, because the buffer gets full in a single second! I took some shots in a water polo game and shooting high fps is amazing since the camera keeps focusing while shooting.
The sweep panorama is a joke - I hoped it would be better than on my precious litle HV9X, but it's not. The EVF is the best that I've seen so far, but it's still nowhere near a Pentaprism

Shooting some water polo, let down by the FPS and fooling around with panorama all to come up with "On top of that, the A77is a really good camera" - all within an hour? Come on Man!!!!

Hey Popular Photog, can I borrow your A77 that you have for review so I can run outside and shoot some water sports with it? <- (me calling right now)

Seriously though, not busting your coconuts or anything but you didn't take no time jumping on the bandwagon did you. You could be right though...





...

[johnmflores]

The compact body of the K5 may prove to be problematic in dissipating the extra heat of the new sensor (and processor).
The body of the A77 is large enough and the independent housing of the (brilliant indeed) articulating screen helps with the heat issue.

Panasonic manage to do a good job managing heat in their diminutive GH2. I shot a 90 minute video interview a couple of weeks ago without a problem.

Pentax also has to find a way to be competitive in video. No control during shooting is not acceptible anymore.

After seeing what Panasonic has managed, I'm skeptical that Pentax can compete. I'd love to be proved wrong though....

It remains to be seen if video will "stick" with the still image crowd. Anyone that's tried it has learned very quickly that it's a very different medium. Yes, some will make it a requirement of their still cameras, but there's a large group that are indifferent to manual control, let alone video at all...

[Emacs]

Hope pentax will choose samsung matrix for their … full frame

[Hound Tooth]

For the pellicle mirror in the A77 not only robs the Sony sensor of 30% of incoming light, it also erodes some detail too - perhaps 5% of image detail is lost, one Alpha user has estimated, due to the imperfect quality of the reflecting surface, based on some tests with his A55.

What the heck are you people saying? Do you even KNOW what "30% of incoming light" means?!? Have the basics of photography flown out the window? Have you forgotten that we deal with light DOUBLING when we refer to stops?

If you use 1/3 EV steps on your Pentax camera, then "30% of incoming light" equals exactly ONE CLICK of the command dial (either for shutter speed or aperture, or even ISO if you use the "as EV steps" option). In other words, it's the same as going from 1/30 to 1/40 shutter speed. Or F4 to F4.5. Or ISO 100 to ISO 125. Also known as "completely negligible". The actual result on the image is barely perceptible and can easily be compensated for in post-processing. You people are making a pretty huge deal out of a lousy 30% loss in light transmittance.

Additionally, the so-called 5% loss in image detail is not only subjective, but may not apply to the A77 at all. Sony isn't just enhancing the EVF on these cameras, they're also enhancing the mirror and other technologies with each generation.

I actually found the A77 pretty interesting. Not interesting enough to replace my K-5, but interesting all the same. Sony is finally catching up to the competition in terms of features, and that's a good thing. Most of the knocks against the A77 in this thread are ridiculous and baseless.

And say what you will about 24mp... I like the idea of gaining 4" of print dimension at 300dpi (20" prints vs 16"). That's a damn substantial difference. And the crop potential is also very appealing. Dismissing 24mp based solely on file size is narrow-minded.

[elho_cid]

Image resolution is one thing and perceptible detail or microcontrast another things. So far the samples available on dpreview and other sites did not convince me that A77 would represent an substantial improvement in terms of resolution.
In other words - adding megapixels actually does produce more data, but not necessarily more information.

[Emacs]

I've predicted several month ago Samsung will own Sony as a sensor maker (technologically) since sams tends to be dominating company in all areas they participate. I know they spend on development very much, but the most amazing thing is how effective their departments are. In fact, their efficiency is about of one of small western company.
So, it's clear the latest samsung sensor outperforms noisy sony one by a very large margin. But I won't buy pentax camera with it cause I don't interested in APS-C cameras for my full frame lenses anymore (will likely buy nx20 + 16 + 20 + 30 pancakes)