Yesterday Sony announced the Xperia Z1 at their IFA 2013 press conference, a new flagship phone for the company in the latter half of the year. That might not be the coolest thing they showed off though, as the Japanese corporation also revealed some crazy new accessories in the QX Smart Lens series.
So the Smart Lens is pretty much a high-end point-and-shoot camera, but with the screen chopped off. It still includes a zoom lens, sensor, imaging chip, stereo microphones, and even a memory card slot. The missing elements – the viewfinder and the controls – are replaced by your smartphone.
You can clip the Smart Lens onto the back of your phone when you want to take some pictures, so you get a similar form factor to an actual point-and-shoot. Of course, because the connection between Lens and smartphone is over Wi-Fi, you’re not limited to that – you can easily take off the lens, perhaps even set it up on a tripod, and still shoot photos remotely.
This hipster-laden video does a pretty decent job of explaining what you can do with the QX10 and QX100.
The Smart Lens is actually pretty cool, as it offers any iOS or Android smartphone the ability to shoot ridiculously high quality images that simply aren’t possible with small lenses and sensors.
There are two options available – the QX10 and the QX100 – which will cost £180 and £400, respectively. That may sound like a lot, but the point-and-shoot cameras that they’re based on are about 25% more expensive, so it’s not entirely unreasonable. The QX10 has a stronger optical zoom – 10x vs 3.6x – but a smaller sensor and lens. The QX10 and QX100 will be available in about two weeks, arriving on September 20th.
These Smart Lenses do seem to be the ultimate Sony Xperia Z1 accessory, but what do you think? Are you planning to pick up the Sony QX10 or QX100? Let me know in the comments below!
Image credit: The Verge.