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Sony develops a camera that pairs up with your smartphone to capture perfect shots
A compact digital camera with an unconventional design, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-QX100 has a lens-like body that can be married to a smartphone.
The QX100 uses the same high-quality lens and image sensor found in Sony’s top-of-the-range DSC-RX100 II – the Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T lens with 3.6 x optical zoom and f/1.8 aperture at the wide focal length and 1-inch Exmor R CMOS sensor.
Sony’s first RX100 digital camera won praise last year and the RX100 II is better, adding a backside illuminated feature to the image sensor that improves the already-good low-light performance.
The QX100 is a compact digital camera with 20.2 megapixel resolution and has everything except a monitor for framing photos and a control unit for choosing exposure modes and adjusting shooting parameters. You will need an Android or iOS smart phone to function as the viewfinder and control unit.
It can operate as a standalone camera though you will have to guess what the shots will look like. Half-press the shutter button and a beep will alert you when the camera achieves focus, then you can depress the button further to take the photo. This way, you can hold the camera at your waist level and shoot.
QX100 also has a zoom lever. Its lens has 28-100mm equivalent focal length so it can compose beautiful landscape shots at a wide angle of 28mm. It also allows you to perform 3.6x optical zoom. QX100 also has a tripod mount and a battery chamber as well as a micro-USB port for recharging the battery and a memory card slot. It supports Memory Stick Micro and microSD card.
It comes with a smartphone mount piece that has foldable clamping arms, one of which is spring-loaded making it easy to attach the QX100 to the edges of your smart phone.
QX100 links to a smart phone with Wi-Fi connection. It has built-in Wi-Fi adapter that functions like a hotspot. The password for connection is printed on the inner side of the battery cover.
And QX100 comes with NFC (near field communication) for assisting the wireless connection. During the test, I connected Sony Xperia V to the QX100 by simply tapping the NFC area at the back of the phone to the NFC area on the camera.
Once connection is achieved, you will need to use the Sony PlayMemories Mobile app to operate the camera.
Unlike a full-functioning digital compact camera, QX100 comes with limited exposure modes – Superior Auto, Intelligent Auto, Program Auto (P) and Aperture Priority (A). Its P exposure mode is also limited. QX100’s P mode allows you to change only exposure setting and white balance setting. You cannot change shutter speed or aperture value.
In the Intelligent Auto mode, the camera will analyse the lighting environment and scene and automatically select a programme scene mode that is optimised for the current conditions.
The Superior Auto mode adds scene modes that are optimised for low-lighting or complicated lighting environment. Scene modes settings include handheld night shot mode and backlit portrait mode.
The impressive quality shots can be attributed to the 1-inch Exmor R CMOS sensor and fast f/1.8 Carl Zeiss lens. When Sony launched the first RX100 last year, the shot quality from its 1-inch sensor prompted Time Magazine to select it as one of 50 best inventions for 2012. Now, the one-inch sensor is larger than ?.3 sensor used in most digital compact cameras.
I was impressed by the quality of photos we captured with QX100. When we tried it in The Nation’s newsroom, the portrait shots rendered beautiful and fair skin tone.
QX100 also has very good performance for low-light shooting. It fires a few shots and combines them into one sharp and clean photo.
And when QX100 takes a shot, it copies a 2-MP-sized photo to the PlayMemories Mobile’s folder on your smartphone. You can review the shot and share it on Facebook and on other social networks immediately. It’s up to you to decide whether to have the original size copied to the phone. Alternatively, you can choose to disable the review mode to improve the shooting performance.
Since it copies a photo to your phone after you press the shutter button on the phone’s screen or the camera though with the latter, there’s a slight delay.
QX100 is ideal for those wanting a new eye for their cameras and who enjoy sharing good quality shots for sharing with online friends.
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-QX100 has a suggested retail price of Bt14,990.
Key specs
_ Imaging Sensor: 1-inch Exmor R CMOS sensor with 20.2 megapixel
_ Processor: BIONZ image processor
_ Lens: Carl Zeiss Vario Sonnar T 3.6x lens with 28-100mm equivalent focal length and f/1.8-4.9 aperture
_ AF Modes: Single-shot AF / Manual Focus / Touch AF
_ Focus System: Contrast-detect AF
_ Exposure Settings: Superior Auto, Intelligent Auto, Program Auto, Aperture Priority, Movie Mode
_ Shutter Speeds: iAuto (4 - 1/2000) / Program Auto (1 - 1/2000) / Aperture Priority (8 - 1/2000)
_ ISO: ISO160-6400 (iAuto), ISO160-25600 (Superior Auto), ISO160-3200 (Program Auto), ISO160-3200 (Aperture Priority)
_ Media Type: Memory Stick Micro / microSD Memory Card / microSDHC Memory Card
_ Video Mode: MP4: 12M (1440 x 1080, 30 fps)
_ Dimensions (Approx.): 62.5mm x 62.5mm x 52.2mm
_ Weight (Approx.): With Battery and Memory Stick_micro 179.0g
