Is Sony making a sensor/lens combo for smartphones?

wow

Credit where's credit's due, I think we have Ricoh to thank for the design. the all in one lensor unit to be coupled to a control / display / storage ... sounds like the Ricoh GXR indeed. The implementation of course differs, but the basic principle and design is there ...

A perfect tool for Spiderman!
Think about it:
Put several WiFi lenses around and control them via a smartphone or a huge tablet then take a series of snaps her and there.
A peeping-t om could attach this to a radio controlled car and see what's underneath.
One could hold it in hand and take shots down, up, side, back, diagonally or any direction.
At home have it watching you baby in another room while you watch movies and zip beer. (yes...zip)
The possibilities that's comes to my feeble mind are endless think about TRULY creative people extending this!
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Expensive :-(

At First, did not think this rumor was a good idea. But, as it looks like it is a Real product, I am starting to see how this could be a very useful Camera/lens for any Smartphone. The "any" part opens up markets. and that the Lens/sensor is "Separate" from your viewing device, think about the possibility for a second. Than maybe water resistant? Maybe even a GoPRO kind of thing, but with remote viewing and Storage.

Basically using your own Smartphone connections and "APPS" and LCD. (everyone is familiar with and use) All it is doing is providing a Better Lens and Sensor, for Better Image Quality.
If you believe that the "LENS" is more important than the camera, as I do. This just might end up being a great idea!

And you can move it to “ANY” Smart phone or NFC / Wifi (LCD/APP) device you have (in theory). It could end up going “beyond” just the Smartphone. :) http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr5-hot-first-images-of-the-new-dsc-qx10-and-dsc-qx100-lens-cameras/

No I don't wanna be called like a dork using my smartphone for photography. I'd rather carry my trusted superzoom or travelzoom cam or premium compact camera like X20 or the slimmer RX100.

I don’t get it; the smartphone is already so thin. Attach a large lensor onion on it, means, the lensor must be carried around somewhere, in a bag I presume, as a delicate, large size onion.
If one has a smartphone, and an RX100, the whole 2-piece combo is easier and less fragile to carry than this 2-piece combo, and — hey! — the lens in RX100 can hide itself inside the RX100 body. Plus, the RX100 body is already better designed for shooting than a smartphone. And no one is carrying a bulging onion hidden in the bag.
At Sony, I wonder who is using family's brain cell at the moment?

Scooby-Doo, Where are you, Shaggy is taking pictures of strawberries.....

Too much technology attached in the device making it bigger and more expensive than necessary.

Of course they do, but they are not the only ones !....
;)

So, if Sony thinks that even a tiny sensored 10x Zoom camera is a worthy upgrade to your smartphone camera, then to my mind this is not innovation but a big step back.

If it fails it fails but that's no reason not to try something different.......... I hope they pull it off

What I'm afraid of is the display lag. For example, the GoPro cameras (even the 3 BE) lag HEAVILY when an iPhone / Android / WP8 device is used as an external viewfinder via WiFi.

I really hope the case will be different with these Sony minicameras.

A camera that's useless without a phone. A doubling of chance that you run out of battery life. It will become breathtakingly sluggisch whenever your phone decides it needs to update some app. Just put smartphone connectivity in every camera, so you can always use your phone screen as articulated viewfinder.

Interesting on a technological level, uninteresting as a photography tool (for me).

I wonder why they essentially make a "camera sans display". It would be interesting to see what they could do if they rather did (lens + sensor), and moved the image processing into an Android app and relying on the phone for power supply (if possible). This might slow down processing but also reduce cost and size/weight.

On a personal level, I would be willing to shell out the cost only to tinker, if I could have access to RX100M2 quality image aquisition delivered raw and realtime to a simple API on my Android phone for developing my own image development and control apps using high-level languages with richly supported infrastructure, sensors and touch support in a small package.

I don't understand what this kind of product does better than other existing devices. Operationally, I really have a hard time figuring out the competitive advantage of such a device. It's like making a smartphone less pocketable or a camera less ergonomic.

Brilliant! Finally the camera for the Google glasses.

This thing offers endless possibilities.

Hmm ... I wonder if they will make a super-dorky iPad version.

This is a fresh idea to smartphone photography. I really would like to test the 1-inch-sensor version with my XPERIA sola.

The market for this kind of thing is gadget geeks ~ not photographers.

If Sony publish an API for these, I'm sure Android programmers would come up with a few interesting apps .

are you sure they didn't get the idea from Ricoh and does it not defeat the smallness of a phone vs. a compact camera? I like the idea but it seems like more stuff to carry.

This is the kind of innovation that photography needs! Props to Sony! Hopefully others will follow.

Brilliant! Nikon and Canon caught with their knickers down.

I like it. It will depend on the cost and how well it actually works, but if the price is reasonable and the photos are good, it should be popular.

should worth a try but I think a "large camera module" like Lumia 4080 (2 stops larger aperture lens) sounds better.

think having to take off the module when not shooting is a pain in the face for most people.

While a nice improvement to the photo taking abilities of a smartphone, it will suffer the same problem Mirrorless System Cameras, Point-And-Shoot, and DSLRs currently have.

No one will bother taking these add-ons with them, all the time.

Smartphones enjoy being "always handy" and "always close at hand". That is a HUGE part of their popularity and the reason why they are used to take more & more photos.

It's like fitting wheels to a tomato. Time consuming and totally unnecessary.

A new low - DPR repeating sonyalpharumorscom rumor and speculation.

As usual Sony leading the rest following...this is the first of its kind, lets see how it works...besides, for people like me that are not into mobile photography because of the quality of the photos, this could be it!!...add tons of apps and everything in between and hardly Sony has an absurd idea on the contrary a good one...

What if newer smart phones come out with a shape that was never considered? What happens to this gadget?

Does it make a nice necklace, or key chain?

.

Hope you can take the lens away from the phone and still take pictures.

MFT and so will most P&S will die.
I say, long live the smartphone with this attachment.

Depending on price this would be a game changer for the Chicago Tribune Iphone photographers ;)

It wasn't that long ago that DPR said it wanted nothing to do with publishing rumors. Guess things have changed.

Neat idea...and by "neat" I mean "stupid" and "ill-conceived".