News - Sony wireless 'lens camera' smartphone lens add-on revealed

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The lens will clip onto your smartphone and boost its imaging capabilities.

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Read more.

Interesting idea....as long as the weight and the app are decent

This is a very, very strange idea in my book - and I'd be interested to see some more detail on this - especially how much Sony are going to ask for this add-on. I'd also be interested to hear how it performs in low/artificial light, a situation where the camera on my current Samsung S3 phone is noticeably worse than the Sony X10 that it replaced!

Hopefully this "lens" is microUSB chargable (so no need for yet another charger) and the phone app has some way to batch download the photos to your phone, so you don't have to use the in-lens storage as anything more than temporary. Also hoping that the Android app is decent - shouldn't be difficult given Sony have a lot of Android phones out there.

Well to an extent it beats having a powerful camera on your phone but with a very low grade lens like on all smartphones really, surely you'd be better off just putting lenses on phone cameras if you wanted a better picture?
we've already seen phones with a higher pixel-count, but every time the lenses let them down....

I'll stick to my pureview for now...
Interesting idea, not sure who it's appealing to though, if you're going to carry that around with you wouldn't you also carry a stand alone camera?

Now you'll be able to see every microbe on your friend's Sunday Roast.

How does this evene work ?

Does it sit on top of your existing camera ???

I like to idea, any idea on price and would this be for Sony mobiles only.

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Originally Posted by OilSheikh

How does this evene work ?

Does it sit on top of your existing camera ???

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It's a camera without any external controls or storage basically. Instead, it uses wireless to connect to a phone, so you control the camera remotely and transfer the pictures to your phone. You could also clip it to your phone in order to have your phone act as a handgrip for it.

a very different idea but could be great while out with the family as long as the price mark is right.

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Originally Posted by David Wheeldon

I like to idea, any idea on price and would this be for Sony mobiles only.

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The article says:

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These devices are said to be compatible with both Android and iOS smartphones and tablets.

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so it's pretty certain that it's not just an Xperia addon. Although I wouldn't like to bet that they don't do a "works best with Xperia" in the small print.

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Originally Posted by sirtrouserpress

Well to an extent it beats having a powerful camera on your phone but with a very low grade lens like on all smartphones really, surely you'd be better off just putting lenses on phone cameras if you wanted a better picture?
we've already seen phones with a higher pixel-count, but every time the lenses let them down....

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Agree totally - unfortunately the current mania for thin (and light) phones means that the only ones with decent optical stages are these phone/camera hybrids like the S4 Zoom, which I'd say is probably too ugly to use as your daily-use mobile. I still insist that what's needed is to take the optics of one of those "internal zoom" digicams and slap it in a thick phone. And hey, I'm sure that any unused extra thickness can be put to good use - for a big battery perhaps.

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Originally Posted by kalniel

It's a camera without any external controls or storage basically. Instead, it uses wireless to connect to a phone, so you control the camera remotely and transfer the pictures to your phone. You could also clip it to your phone in order to have your phone act as a hand grip for it.

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From what I can gather the lens camera has an image processor (a Sony Bionz processor as per their other cameras) but that just takes the reading from the sensor and turns it into usable image data. The rest is done by the phone app, like any panoramic effects, filtering, colour correction, etc.

So I guess the app would be more flexible and ultimately more powerful than what can be done in camera. Another benefit is that in theory the lens can be remote, and not attached to the smartphone at all. Also it could be that these lenses would "last" longer than conventional point and shoots as the app can be updated very easily to add more features, something that isn't done with compacts.

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Originally Posted by Funkstar

From what I can gather the lens camera has an image processor (a Sony Bionz processor as per their other cameras) but that just takes the reading from the sensor and turns it into usable image data. The rest is done by the phone app, like any panoramic effects, filtering, colour correction, etc.

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Which is how some of us use our cameras already ;)

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So I guess the app would be more flexible and ultimately more powerful than what can be done in camera. Another benefit is that in theory the lens can be remote, and not attached to the smartphone at all. Also it could be that these lenses would "last" longer than conventional point and shoots as the app can be updated very easily to add more features, something that isn't done with compacts.

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Or vice versa - you can switch lenses/backs based on the task at hand.

Interesting idea, I didn't know about the Samsung S4 Zoom either so thank you crossy for pointing it out.

I think this idea is brilliant as it looks pretty pocketable and I can't imagine it being too heavy. I just hope it manages to attach to the phone well enough, I can imagine it falling off quite easily as some phones are ridiculously thin nowadays.

Also, as it's wireless, that would mean one requires tethering for Wifi right? Signal isn't the best in some areas unfortunately - especially for some more scenic locations. But then again, it does support NFC too but I've no experience of NFC and don't know much about it so I can only hope that NFC works well enough. I wonder how much data is sent between the two devices, would bluetooth not be good enough for it? I'm pretty sure there are more devices with bluetooth than NFC.

The only issue I see is cost over a camera. It would be greate for sony to bring out a CyberShot veriant of the Xperia Z with the 20mp bundled, great competion over the Galaxy s4 Zoom.

Surely that means the image sensor in in the lens to which I would have to buy a new swnsor how different focal lengths.

No thanks

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Originally Posted by Percy1983

Surely that means the image sensor in in the lens to which I would have to buy a new swnsor how different focal lengths.

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There are such things as zoom lenses you know ;)

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Originally Posted by kalniel

There are such things as zoom lenses you know ;)

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I am very much aware of this but for a lens to go from 25mm-500mm it will need to be rather compromised or be on a rather small sensor and therefore compromised.

I suppose it does come down to cost.

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Originally Posted by Ulti

Also, as it's wireless, that would mean one requires tethering for Wifi right? Signal isn't the best in some areas unfortunately - especially for some more scenic locations.

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If I had to guess I'd suggest it's probably using WiFi Direct. So there won't be any problems signal strength irrespective of where you are. So you might not be able to make a phone call, but at least you'll be able to transfer your pictures.

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Originally Posted by Ulti

But then again, it does support NFC too but I've no experience of NFC and don't know much about it so I can only hope that NFC works well enough. I wonder how much data is sent between the two devices, would bluetooth not be good enough for it? I'm pretty sure there are more devices with bluetooth than NFC.

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I've done a couple of transfers with NFC and it seems to work fine. You've got a point though, NFC isn't exactly a speed daemon, certainly a lot slower than regular Bluetooth. I can only assume that Sony valued the ease-of-use and low power requirements of NFC higher. And yes, before anyone picks me up on that last one, I know BT4.0LP has similar power usage to NFC.

Interesting side point though, iPhones don't have NFC nor WiFi Direct, so how are they supposed to connect? Although I've seen a couple of posts on the Apple support forums that suggest the current iPhone only lacks OS support and that's due in iOS7 as "AirDrop" (stupid Apple, why can't they call it WiFi Direct like everyone else).