August 13, 2013

Sony’s snap on lens for Android phones can kill point and shoot cameras

by Sayan Chakravarty

While the camera on smartphones have evolved at blistering pace and have more than satisfactory performance, they haven’t been able to replace point and shoots. That’s mainly due to small sensors, bad optics and lack of optical zooms. Nokia tried introducing optical zoom and bigger sensor in the past but it made the phone so bulky that it became a flopped idea. Sony, according to leaked information, is going to launch two wireless lenses that can be attached to its smartphone. DSC-QX10 and DSC-QX100 isn’t just any lens but fully functional cameras with optical sensor built into them. These two lenses can be magnetically snapped on to the back of the handsets running on Android and iOS.


The lens won’t need the smartphone’s sensor or the software but use it as a view finder communicating through NFC/Wi-Fi. The built in sensor is as big as the micro four-third system with a crop factor of 2.0 which means its half the size of a 35mm sensor on full frame DSLR. This ensures great pictures with high resolution and the ability to take better night shots. These lenses exist on traditional point and shoot with a price tag ranging from $400 to $600. With wireless support the prices might be pushed higher but nevertheless it’s one cracking idea and can really make point and shoots redundant.

[Via – Gigaom]