Olympus has officially announced the Air, a 16-megapixel camera that looks more like a teleconverter that has a sensor stuffed into it. The device acts as a middleman between your Micro Four Thirds lens and your smartphone, effectively turning your phone into a giant LCD screen and user interface for a modular camera.
Back in September of this year, Olympus announced that it would be trying its hand at "lens cameras" with a new "Open Platform" project. The goal is to create a camera module that features a sensor, a lens mount, and wireless pairing with a smartphone.
Early illustrations showed a cube-like camera, but Olympus is now showing off a new rounded prototype that looks a lot more like a lens than it does a camera.
Now that Sony's QX1 -- basically a smartphone add-on that lets you use E-Mount lenses with your phone -- has arrived, it was inevitable that people would take these new interchangeable lens capabilities to comical extremes. Enter Facebook user Usperedi, who created the image above for Sony Alpha Rumors.
People have been questioning the wisdom of the Sony QX so-called 'lens cameras' since before they even arrived. CNET mocked the news when it was still a rumor, saying it made no sense for Sony to release a camera accessory that made your phone just as bulky as a real camera... why would people buy that and not a real camera?
Well, we're not sure of the answer to CNET's question, but it seems Sony is pretty confident in them, because they just released the QX1 and QX30: two new smartphone-mounted lens cameras that augment your smartphone with an E-Mount and 30x optical zoom, respectively.
You get a leak! And you get a leak! Everybody gets a leak!
It looks like somebody (or a few people) in the know at Sony were feeling very generous this morning because we woke up to not one, but two separate sources of leaked photos showing a very exciting new product from Sony: the next QX, smartphone-mounted 'lens camera.'
And it's exciting because, in this case, the term 'lens camera' doesn't really work anymore. This isn't a whole camera contained in a lens... it's more of a smartphone-attachable E-Mount that will let you swap out lenses!
Right before Christmas, news broke that Sony had an update in the pipeline for the QX10 and QX100 lens cameras that would help them take better photos in low light and improve video quality. Well, that update has finally arrived.
Tablet photography is something of an oxymoron for most photographers, but there are those who occasionally (or more than occasionally) snap a photo on their iOS or Android tablet, and Sony would like to help those people take better pictures.
To that effect, the company has released a new add-on that will allow tablet users to securely fasten their QX10 or QX100 lens cameras to their tablets as well as their phones.
We’re not entirely sure what Sony was trying to do with this video, but we find ourselves sort of …
Whatever you want to call the emerging category of camera/lens assemblies that snap onto a smartphone, there no doubt it's growing. Case in point: Sony's QX line and JK Imaging/Kodak's SL series will soon by joined by a Vivitar model that made a very quiet debut last week at CES.
There's one final gear announcement from CES that we just didn't manage to get to this week, and that is the new line of Kodak-branded products that JK Imaging showed off at the trade show. From lens cameras that look an awful lot like cheap knock-offs of Sony's QX10 and QX100, to an updated line of superzooms, a Micro Four Thirds model and a couple of 'rugged' action cameras, here's what JK/Kodak brought to the CES table.
Fans of Sony's QX10 and QX100 lens cameras -- you know, the ones that use your smartphone as a controller/LCD but pack all of the important bits in an external unit -- have reason to rejoice today, because it looks like there's a major update coming to both versions.
It looks like Sony isn't the only company interested in attaching some external camera hardware to your smartphone. According to a recent announcement, Chinese electronics company OPPO is making its own attachable lens cameras.
Less than 24 hours before we're supposed to officially hear from Sony about the company's upcoming SmartShot lens cameras, a whole set of press images showing both models from every angle have leaked online.
It looks like we don't have much longer to wait until the QX10 and QX100 Sony 'lens cameras' actually make their official debut. And just in time for the rumored announcement on Tuesday, we've got ourselves some more specs and photos of the groundbreaking system to share with you.
Earlier this week, we got a close look at how Sony's upcoming "lens cameras" will look, thanks to a set of leaked press photos, and now we have a better idea of how they'll work, thanks to some leaked owner's manual pages.
There's been a lot of doubt surrounding recent rumors that Sony is working on a couple of revolutionary "lens cameras." The smartphone-attachable lenses -- complete with built-in sensor and processor -- seemed far-fetched to some, but now that we have our first leaked images, any remaining doubts should start melting away.
Crazy rumor brewing in the camera world today: Sony is reportedly building a camera lens with a built-in sensor -- a lens that could be paired with a smartphone to create an interchangeable lens camera!