Sony is at the forefront of design and pushing the boundaries in regards to design and style of their products. This continues, as it seems Sony is looking to go a step further and attach an entire seperate series of camera lenses to the back of your smartphone according to a report from Sony Alpha Rumours website.
These clip-on lens units will actually contain almost everything you need to take a picture — a built-in sensor, Bionz image processor, WiFi/NFC, and an SD card slot — however there is just one thing missing from that list, isn’t there? That’s where your smartphone comes into the picture as the view finder for the camera lens.
The lens will connect wirelessly to your device and use that screen as the viewfinder. All the controls will be in your smartphone.
Here are a couple of press shots that have leaked out through Sony Alpha Rumours:
There are two lenses which have been somewhat confirmed at this stage, being the DSC-QX10 and DSC-QX100.The QX100 will be based on the 20.2MP RX100 sensor and Zeis lens from the DSC-RX100M camera which retails for approximately $799 on the Sony website (or $748 US on Amazon websitehttp://www.amazon.com/Sony-DSC-RX100M-Cyber-shot-Digital-Camera/dp/B00DGQK2GM/?tag=androidpolice-20).
The QX10will feature 10x optical zoom and an 18MP sensor. This lens camera is expected to be similar to the DSC-WX150, which retails for approximately $400US on the Amazon website, though there are still a lot of unknowns here with the exact specs.
Whilst this might seem quite weird, to have a separate camera lens attachments accessory instead of just using your smartphone’s stock camera lens, it it might have some appeal if the price and features are reasonable. Ultimately, compatibility will be the main key feature that would have to be addressed to ensure they could be used on perhaps non-Sony mobile smartphones.
We do note, though, that Sony Alpha Rumours have implied the lens cameras will work with all Android phones and the iPhone with a possible announcement launch for late August.
So would you consider buying a separate camera lens attachments for your smartphone?
