Does that save photos to the camera roll or a separate Sony app?
YouTube: video
That's interesting, but I'm not sure I understand the purpose. Why would this be more desirable than buying a camera that is independent of your phone?
I guess I don't see the innovation here. Innovative would have been if the standard camera on the smartphone could do this. Seems like it will fill a niche market. I paid 4 figures for my dSLR and wouldn't pay a hundred for this...
are you joking or serious?
I hope it doesn't take too long for someone to hack together a control interface for MacOS.
With a modern smartphone you've got a large, high-res display for viewfinder and preview, a shedload of storage, mobile data access (and pre-configured links to your cloud/social networking/email accounts) as well as enough CPU power to do basic photo editing. This is far more power than you get on the typical stand-alone camera - and if you've already got that power in your pocket, why duplicate the functionality on a camera, when you could get a "smart lens" that just links to your phone?
Also, I think digital photography is now a bit more mature than smartphones - so a system like this could survive several smartphone updates.
The quality of the built-in camera on a smartphone is always going to be limited by the small sensor & small lens, leading to poor low-light performance, limited zoom, inability to control depth-of-field etc. While sensor technology may improve, there's no substitute for a decent bit of glass on the front. A smartphone with a decent lens is always going to be too bulky.
Then there's the more practical aspects: smartphone camera lenses are ground zero for fingerprints, dust and scratches. With this, you only get the camera part out when you are "doing photography" sparing it the day-to-day wear and tear.
I agree, though - what would be interesting would be doing this with a DSLR- or Bridge- class body that offered a head-and-shoulders improvement over the phonecam, rather than what looks like a "compact" class lens.
Why? For 'real' cameras we have this already on both Mac and Win. This quirky solution is meant to be extremely portable. Even with an MBA, that would kinda defeat the purpose.
I think Apple could improve on this idea ... This thing should be magsafe connected to the back "minus" any actual port to plug into. Meaning, you should be able to wave the phone over the lens and it just jumps on the back of the phone. Slidable from end to end of the phone just for comfort, and a safe release button on the lens to pop it off.
A shorter zoom range permits a greater maximum aperture therefore better low light performance.
You can choose a large zoom range or a fast lens, you can't have both. Not unless you're prepared for it to be very large, very heavy and very expensive e.g. 70-200 2.8 zooms.
Wouldn't a magnet stong enough to hold a lens like this seriously interfere with the phone signal? Not to mention cling on to the keys in your pocket and every other piece of metal your phone comes close to.
This is going to be a very disruptive product if Sony does in fact make it near effortless to interface with a smartphone (for me iPhone).
I like the fact that the lens module can be used independently of the smartphone up to some as yet unknown range. I especially favor the 1 inch imager as an excellent compromise of size over image IQ (I also have a Nikon V1).
I'll will be preordering the QX100 when I see it available on Amazon.
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Woah! Good job Sony. Now Apple needs to work out a partnership so everyone is happy.