Samsung terminates GX

. . ."for foreseeable future".

Monday 7th September 2009
Damien Demolder
samsung nx

The pressures of researching and manufacturing the new NX series camera system mean that Samsung will not be introducing a new GX digital SLR camera for the foreseeable future, according to Seung Soo Park, vice president of the strategy marketing team of Samsung's digital media business.

See: http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/news/samsung_nx_series_terminates_gx_for_fo...

Why?

AP seem to forget that the GX series use K mount lenses and are not tied to an obsolete format IN ANY WAY!!!

If GX production stops then there'll still be Pentax bodies.

Or am I missing something?

I think it says hibernate not terminate.

That remains to be seen. In any case it is important to distinguish that this is an article of faith rather than an immutable law of nature.

In particular as a former strategic partner of Pentax, Samsung are likely to have - possibly to a significant extent - co-financed the development of new Pentax dslr models.

As such it is clearly not a wild stretch of the imagination to suspect that the current dearth of new Pentax models in the aherm product line-up is due to the withdrawal of such financing, and/or the unwillingness of Hoya to pump more money into the enterprise.

It also sheds further light on the urgency of the Hoya CEO's recent plea for strategic partners.

I agree, all the GX owners I've spoken to are fully aware of that fact and in some cases actually aspire to switching to Pentax on their next uprgade, maybe thats why Samsung need to go their own route.

If Samsung cease all development of 'their' DSLR range, it gives them no reason to develop the larger and higher quality sensors and electronics these cameras require.

I'd have thought that must call into question the long term viability of Hoya's Pentax badged DSLRs, given that they are all produced in the same factory, as far as I know, and Samsung's decision would lower the overall output of that factory.

This alone is unlikely to change direct volume manufacturing costs much, although the overall impact may just be enough to sink Pentax.

The basic problem is that the operation is too small; whereas Pentax's global market share is skirting around margin of error territory Samsung are in fact right off the map.

This makes it unviable because the puny market share - combined or otherwise - must grow significantly to achieve anything resembling critical mass. Otherwise the business can simply not generate enough cash to be self-financing, raising the painful question why should anybody want to own it for investment purposes.

However, no doubt the Samsung partnership provided Pentax designers with significant input around the sensor which is clearly the key camera component. Separately Pentax have recently sacked a whole bunch of design staff in Japan and you have to seriously wonder what actual product development capacity remains, given the way the organisation has been butchered.

I really don't see how Hoya can take a constructive view of Pentax in light of this development. Objectively it is not just one or two problems with the company operationally but that the whole thing needs to be fixed from the ground up, from design, manufacturing, quality control to marketing.

It is a veritable management nightmare; who needs the grief?

It's a shame and I hope Pentax (really, the Pentax lens mount) can survive.

I bought into the range because it offered a more professional take on reasonably priced cameras, tilted towards the serious rather than consumer market, and a series of neat prime lenses.

Since most people prefer zoom lenses and are happy to pay for face recognition, video etc, the raison d'etre for Pentax/ Samsung seems to have been undercut.

It looks as if serious phographers wanting new cameras might have to pay more and buy a prosumer Nikon or Canon instead. Any engineers here? Would it be technically feasible to make a Pentax lens to Nikon/ Canon body adaptor?

Canon yes (and a lot of folk already doing it), Nikon no (you'd need an adapter with a glass element to retain infinity focus which would rather miss the point of the exercise).

Any more inf on that? I've got 3 Pentax primes and a 60-250 zoom. If I could adapt those to a Canon body I might just get one to go with my GX20.

I bought my GX on the basis of the DA primes available - camera bodies always seem a secondary consideration to me.

You may be right, but I'm not sure. My impression is that medical and specialist imaging accounts for a fair chunk of Pentax, so it is not only about cameras. Secondly, it rather begs the question of why Hoya bought Pentax and why - possibly - they declined to sell it on to Samsung whose interest may have cooled when it became clear they couldn't get into cameras by doing as Sony have done with Minolta. Pentax certainly seem to have a pretty good market share in some places, like Japan and France, for example. Oh well, we'll see.

They would be manual focus and exposure only, and you'd need lenses with aperture rings if you wanted to have any control of the aperture. So that would rule out your 60-250 for a start.

Dan

EDIT: Added Lemmy's quote for context.

Mods: We now have three threads relating to the demise of the Samsung GX series.

I concur and I'd also like to add that certain K-mount lenses (like the FA77 for example) require a permanent modification to work on FF Canons in order to avoid fouling the mirror (APS-C Canons don't have that problem so it's just an adapter required).

You'd still have the Pentax glass but you'd lose too much functionality to make it worth doing unless you *have* to have a FF DSLR and happen to have a lot of FA (and prior) glass going spare.

If it would look like the K7 will be the only available camera with Pentax mount in the future, I would think about eBaying all my Pentax gear while it still has some value and buying into another range lock stock and barrel.