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New images have emerged of Sony’s snap-on smartphone lenses, the DSC-QX10 and DSC-QX100, which each pack an entire camera inside.
(Credit: PhotoRumors)
With Sony due to hold its IFA press conference tonight, one rumoured product (or, rather, two) has us tremendously excited: the DSC-QX10 and DSC-QX100, a pair of lenses that you snap on to your smartphone, each with an image sensor inside — essentially an entire digital camera that uses your smartphone as the viewfinder.
It’s possibly the worst-kept secret that Sony has had for a while. Two sources have leaked separate resources ahead of Sony’s announcement: from PhotoRumors, 24 press photos of the two lenses — 12 of the DSC-QX10 and 12 of the DSC-QX100 — and from YouTube channel mobileleaks, a video showing the lenses in action.
The images don’t show more than the gadgets’ looks, although we do get a good sense of scale and how they will attach to the phone — in the pictures, probably the rumoured Honami. For the DSC-QX100, it appears to be some sort of snap-on mount, while the DSC-QX10 uses an entire specially designed case.
The video has rather more detail.
We’ve already heard that each lens will be equipped with a built-in sensor, a Bionz processor and an SD card slot. It will snap onto the smartphone magnetically, and communicate with it via Wi-Fi or near-field communication (NFC). The video confirms Wi-Fi, as well as that the DSC-QX100 will be equipped with a 1.0-Type Exmor R CMOS sensor and F1.8 Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* lens — a smartphone equivalent, it would seem, to the Sony RX100 II.
The DSC-QX10 will have 10x optical zoom and SteadyShot, as well as a 1/2.3-inch, 18-megapixel CMOS sensor — more in line with the Cyber-shot DSC-150.
And although the lenses can indeed be snapped to the phone, it looks as though they can be removed for shooting in hard-to-reach places, still using the phone’s screen as a viewfinder.
