Sony DSC-QX100 Smartphone Attachable Lens-style Camera Samples, Price and Review:

Sony's new QX100 smartphone accessory will let you take plenty of great pictures on your smartphone, but you may be better off just buying the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 II camera and using its built-in wireless features to transfer files to your handset instead.

Introduced at the IFA 2013 tradeshow in Berlin alongside the new Sony Xperia Z1, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-QX100 and QX10 are a new breed of camera accessory that is designed to improve the quality of images shot with smartphones. Equipped with bigger sensors and optical zoom capabilities, these accessories are essentially cameras add-ons (without viewfinders) for your phone that lets you shoot better pictures than the current crop of smartphones.


In fact, the high-end QX100 model is actually based on the innards of Sony's advanced compact camera, the Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 II. This should ensure pretty high quality images, given the excellent track record of the RX100 II and RX100. Sadly, as much as we'd like to give Sony credit for an innovative attempt to improve the image quality of smartphone cameras, the QX100 isn't the most user-friendly device.

So far I have been very impressed with the versatility of this product. It really opens up a whole new world of shooting possibilities. I have been using it on an Android smartphone and have had no connection problems with the direct WiFi. The only drawback I am experiencing is skies "blowing out" and becoming over exposed when taking pictures in very bright sunlight - Although you can compensate for this slightly by altering the bracketing. My initial experiences in low light photography with this camera are impressive. It even manages to provide a sharp blur free image with shutter speeds as low as 1/30th of a second.

It connects easily with your phone using the Sony PlayMemories free app, has complete control via the phone screen (including touch focus, exposure bracketing, zoom, etc.), and allows the user to take pictures at unusual point of views which makes for some interesting creative imagery.

So far, my only gripes are that you have to hit the back button each time you snap a picture (this may be fixed with a future firmware update), and the bracket to attach to a phone is not big enough to attach to larger smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy Note.

Price: $498


Pros:

• Innovative device.
• Fantastic photo quality.
• Compatible with Android and iOS.
• NFC pairing makes it easy to set up.
• Allows for shooting from unique angles. 

Cons:

• Large footprint makes it clunky to use;
• Limited feature set;
• Laggy viewfinder (on the smartphone);
• Expensive accessory. 

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-QX100 Camera Samples :

 

Basically, this camera is the exact specs as the Sony RX100 camera without the screen, so I would advise anyone thinking about buying this lens to also check out the reviews on the Sony RX100 to get further insight until we can weed out all the initial negative reviews currently coming in from the like of people who either don't even own the camera (but always seem to have something to say), or the nonsensical people who give this camera a one star review because "their app on their phone crashed".