I am not into smart phone either but man if they could make one that would work with my slr I would be happy happy happy! So many times I just cant get the right angle, especially at lunch, in my office clothes lol.
@acloserlookpbd Most of the same remote control functionality is available if you have the NEX-6 or NEX-5R. (You can't zoom from your smartphone as most NEX lenses are manually zoomed only)
But why bother with enhanced lenses when stuck with the tiny sensor, all that noise and the rather ho-hum image processor? At that price point especially.
@frankhymus That's part of the point though -- you're not stuck with a tiny sensor or image processor. The QX100 uses the identical sensor and lens as the extremely highly-rated RX100 II compact -- that's a 1 inch sensor, which is pretty huge as compact cameras go, and the same Bionz image processor, combined with a lens that goes to f/1.8 at the wide end.
The price point is high for the QX100 at $499, but you are getting the exact same camera (optics and processing-wise) as the RX100 II, with the display and controls delegated to your smartphone. The RX100 II is flying off the shelves at $749.
The QX10 is a much lesser sensor, really being just a compact Sony camera with a super-zoom (20x) lens, and again with the screen and controls delegated to the smartphone -- clearly it's not going to provide anything sensational in terms of image quality, but again I imagine it will be marketed at a lower cost than the equivalent Sony compact, and a proper optical 20x zoom is a pretty tempting upgrade over a smartphone's digital zoom. Certainly this option is of a lot less interest to the enthusiast photographer than the QX100 though.
My concerns are:
1. Lag. The whole system seems very slow and cumbersome to use in the videos I've seen of it. While they make a point of not having to wait for the image to transfer to the phone before you can take a second shot (because the images are also stored on an SD card in the 'camera'), burst mode still seems to consist of stabbing the control on the phone multiple times to get it to respond, and you're lucky if you can 'burst' at anything over two frames a second. (In contrast, the RX100 II will do 10fps). I suspect this is more an issue of getting the commands from the phone to the lens, but still...
2. Droppability. In every video I've seen of people trying this out, they always look like they're about to either drop their phone, or the lens, or both, at any minute. Merely popping out the catches that let you mount the lens to the phone, while holding the phone in one hand and the lens in the other, looks like a very precarious activity that could at any moment end up with one or both pieces of hardware going flying. I'll reserve total judgement until I've tried it myself, but I'm not sure a totally round 'lens' that you're only ever going to hold with one hand is a design that will necessarily work well...
Edit: It also seems like there are some limitations of the QX100 such as no RAW shooting, which is a shame, as the RX100 II can do this. Presumably this is to limit the cannibalisation of RX100 II sales, but I'm not sure that attempting to sell a high-end and high-priced camera module while unnecessarily disabling high-end features is necessarily a winning strategy.
@abirkill Ah, a whole camera then, something like the RX100 glued to the phone for control in the case of the QX100? Apprecite your clarifying that for me. But yes, your concerns would suggest to me "Why bother?" The enthusiast would rather the camera surely, and it seems a most exensive gimic for the casual phone user.
It's an interesting concept from Sony. Fair play for having a go at something new, I think I prefer it to the phones with the lens permanently stuck on from Samsung! Maybe this could be the footing for development of a raw shooting model. And equally speed up the development of better oem supported camera to phone interfacing, for dslrs and compacts. However I agree with @abirkill it looks awkward to hold and I wouldnt trust myself not to drop it with my big clumsy hands, the phone has pretty much become something that's difficult to hold and operate in one hand now.
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The price point is high for the QX100 at $499, but you are getting the exact same camera (optics and processing-wise) as the RX100 II, with the display and controls delegated to your smartphone. The RX100 II is flying off the shelves at $749.
The QX10 is a much lesser sensor, really being just a compact Sony camera with a super-zoom (20x) lens, and again with the screen and controls delegated to the smartphone -- clearly it's not going to provide anything sensational in terms of image quality, but again I imagine it will be marketed at a lower cost than the equivalent Sony compact, and a proper optical 20x zoom is a pretty tempting upgrade over a smartphone's digital zoom. Certainly this option is of a lot less interest to the enthusiast photographer than the QX100 though.
My concerns are:
1. Lag. The whole system seems very slow and cumbersome to use in the videos I've seen of it. While they make a point of not having to wait for the image to transfer to the phone before you can take a second shot (because the images are also stored on an SD card in the 'camera'), burst mode still seems to consist of stabbing the control on the phone multiple times to get it to respond, and you're lucky if you can 'burst' at anything over two frames a second. (In contrast, the RX100 II will do 10fps). I suspect this is more an issue of getting the commands from the phone to the lens, but still...
2. Droppability. In every video I've seen of people trying this out, they always look like they're about to either drop their phone, or the lens, or both, at any minute. Merely popping out the catches that let you mount the lens to the phone, while holding the phone in one hand and the lens in the other, looks like a very precarious activity that could at any moment end up with one or both pieces of hardware going flying. I'll reserve total judgement until I've tried it myself, but I'm not sure a totally round 'lens' that you're only ever going to hold with one hand is a design that will necessarily work well...
Edit: It also seems like there are some limitations of the QX100 such as no RAW shooting, which is a shame, as the RX100 II can do this. Presumably this is to limit the cannibalisation of RX100 II sales, but I'm not sure that attempting to sell a high-end and high-priced camera module while unnecessarily disabling high-end features is necessarily a winning strategy.