Samsung has just recently "announced" the GX-20 in Hong Kong with very low price tags set for the GX-20 (body only) and kits with single and twin lenses. See the latest news article at the AV Buzz (Text in Traditional Chinese, use BabelFish to translate if needed).Now, let's look at the *suggested retail* prices by Samsung: GX-20 body sold only at HK$6490 (US$832), GX-20 + 18-55 for HK6990 (US$896) and GX-20 with 18-55 and 50-200 for HK$7990 (US$1024) only! As the street prices are usually even lower than those "suggested retail prices", I expect that we can easily get those stuff even cheaper at the streets.
So, with that significant price differences between the K20D and the GX-20 now and ditto for other same "Pentax" lenses (actually), there is no real reason to get the original Pentax stuff, unless the buyers just want to see the Pentax logo on the gear, but nothing else.
In fact, the GX-20 only lacks the PEF RAW file format (but it does have the universal DNG) and does look just somehow differently in cosmetic terms (some GX button and curve shapes are designed to look somehow silly, though, IMO and I do prefer the K20D's original design), there is actually no other difference then. As for the digital lenses, they are actually all Pentax OEM products (or Tokina OEM Squared products, it doesn't matter anyway..), just with a printed Schneider name on them. Nonetheless, the Samsung show girls look more attractive than what the Samsung gear look, just enjoy the nice photos anyway! ;-)
It seems that Samsung is going to eat the (already pathetic) sales from Pentax (with an obvious intention too), what will Pentax do? Price cuts or new models??
Well, could you imagine Hoya selling Pentax division to Samsung?
ReplyDeleteYes, it's possible and it would be a good thing to Pentax users too. It is because Samsung seems to be at least somehow aggressive in running camera business and thus they will surely invest more (at least it is already shown that they invested to build the new K20D sensor). But, the only undesirable thing left for most Pentaxians is that Samsung probably won't keep the Pentax name and all DSLRs and lenses will be marked Samsung then, like what Sony did to Minolta.
ReplyDeletek20d body: 89 800 JPY (818 USD)
ReplyDeletehttp://kakaku.com/item/00491011105/
k20d with da 18-55mm: 96 000 JPY (875 USD)
http://kakaku.com/item/00491011106/
pentax offers 10 000 JPY cacheback for borth body and lens kit in japan
http://www.pentax.jp/japan/info/200806cashback/
no need to buy samsung
I played with a GX20 alongside a K20D several months ago and here's what I've found:
ReplyDeleteThings that the K20D has but the GX20 does not:
1. D-Range mode (dynamic range expansion)
2. 1.6MP, 21fps burst mode
3. Vibrant and monochrome custom image modes (but the GX20 has User 1 and User 2 in their places)
4. PEF RAW format (GX20 only has DNG)
The GX20 displays some vital shooting data at the bottom of the LCD during live view while the K20D doesn't.
The GX20 has some firmware-level tweaks that aims at doing things without going through the menu. For example, with the K20D you use Fn-->OK to get into custom image settings while on the GX20 you could press Delete button once in shooting mode to get into it. The GX20 also adds a fourth item to the preview modes, so in addition to Live View, digital preview, optical preview, it now has a custom WB mode. When in this mode, you can aim the camera at a white or gray card and pull the preview lever once to set custom WB. Of course if you're using this mode, you can't use any other preview mode at the same time.
I don't know if the GX20 uses different image processing in the firmware.
Anyway, the GX20 differs from the K20D more than the GX10 from the K10D in my opinion.
Peter
Peter, thanks for the supplement. Anyway, I think the differences between the GX-20 and K20D, whilst are more than previous, they are all insignificant actually nor they would probably affect any system performance and image quality. Afterall, these two cameras were twin born and are just variants but not different species.
ReplyDelete