Turn Smart Phone into Premium Camera

[Taffycat]

I wondered if our PCR photography enthusiasts have heard about this Sony lens, which is capable of converting a smartphone into a "premium camera."

Seems to me that one could purchase quite a decent camera for the price (around £350+ here) but, on the other hand, it can also - according to the blurb - be used as a standalone camera. (No viewfinder or LCD though.)

Sony QX100 Lens Style Camera

A Wi-Fi-enabled camera lens and image sensor combo that you're meant to use with your smartphone, though it can also act as a standalone device. The 20-megapixel, one-inch image sensor and 28-100mm (35mm equivalent) f/1.8-4.9 Carl Zeiss zoom lens are slightly modified versions of the guts in the totally spectacular RX100 II point-and-shoot released last year.

You can find the review and see demo photos here: gizmodo.com

 

[muckshifter]

yes, and it's been posted before on the forums.

I'll still use a 'proper' camera to take pics, and, use the phone to err ... play music, watch videos, scan me emails, post on forums and ... oh yes, make phone calls.

 

[Ian]

I can't deny that it's pretty clever, however I'd agree with you that it seems to make sense to get a decent standalone camera for that price!

It looks like the Samsung S4 Zoom comes with an integrated 10x optical zoom, and it doesn't look too bulky. It's probably too big for me to want to carry around all the time, but I bet there is a market for it. No doubt in a few years optical zoom lenses will be tiny .

 

[Quadophile]

I would not consider it, too many compromises in my opinion. A stand alone camera is way better. My LX7 is far more versatile than the combo of this lens with my Galaxy S4.

Yes the tiny optical zoom lenses are in the works and very soon we may have smartphones which are not bulky take great photos.

The only thing I do not like is absence of a viewfinder, looking at LCD, composing and shooting is not very convenient at all. I just went ahead and ordered a viewfinder for my LX7, and it hurt bad as it does not come cheap.

Funny as it may seem, more and more folks use smartphones not really as a phone but for everything else. They should be renamed to something like "Smartass" instead of smartphone. .

I think I am going to program my Galaxy S4 with a wake-up command of "Wake up SmartAss!"