Sony’s Lens Camera leak shows off external lens attachment on a Xperia Honami

Sony has been known for its innovative attempts at consumer technology, but the leak you see above takes it to a whole new level. What you see, is a Sony Lens Camera. It’s a lens, and a camera, yet it doesn’t have a viewfinder like a normal camera. This is where the Xperia i1 Honami comes in, acting as a wireless viewfinder to the Sony Lens. This crazy contraption is actually inspired(?) from a critically acclaimed Wireless ViewFinder Interchangeble lens(WVIL) camera concept shown off by a company called Artefact, way back at CES 2011. Here’s a video demo, to help you ease you into the concept of a wireless viewfinder lens camera -

The Sony Lens camera is very similar to the one you saw above. The Lens Camera unit has a lens, a BIONZ sensor, WiFi/NFC connectivity and a SD card slot. It connects to the Xperia Honami i1 or any other device through WiFi/NFC, with it attaching to the back of your smartphones using a magnetic attachment or a clamp like the one you see above. According to SonyAlphaRumours, there are two Sony Lens Cameras in the work, and they are -

Sony will soon launch two “lens-cameras”:
1) One is the “Lens-camera” with RX100MII sensor and  Zeiss lens. On the pictures it is the bigger lens. As you know the RX100 is the most praised high end compact camera and features a large 1 inch sensor which is the same used by the Nikon 1 system. Now you can have that kind of Image Quality on your iPhone or Android Smartphone!
2) The second model will feature a 10xzoom lens with 1/2,3 inch 18 megapixel CMOS sensor (the image with the f/3,3-5.9 lens). It’s basically the same sensor and lens of the Sony WX150.

As you can see above, the one with the RX100 MII sensor(1″ 20MP, f1.2 lens) is a much higher end offering that might enthuse camera lovers, and the second option with a 10x zoom might be just to . The ability to use any smartphone as a viewfinder is certainly intriguing, but yet again, this is an innovation that goes astray from convergence. Instead of carrying around an extra camera, you’ll be carrying around a lens which is also a camera, and it might be really costly too, additional to the cost of the phone.

That aside, it does provide interesting use cases and interactivity with a wireless lens. Take a look at the demonstration video from Artefact here -

This is a fun initiative from Sony. Definitely a risk, but intriguing enough to be considered a viable alternative for people seeking extremely portable high quality photography. Will this be successful? Most likely not, considering it will be priced very high and out of reach for the masses, but if Sony can pull a rabbit out of the hat by bundling this with its smartphones, it might get the adoption it needs. And since it also has the ability to work with other devices, we might even see widespread adoption across the platforms, or not. One can hope, eh?

Finally someone is doing something new in mobile photography other than Nokia, and we’ll know all the details for sure when the Xperia i1 Honami and the Lens Cameras launch at the upcoming IFA event in Berlin, Germany. We will be covering the event live and will let you know all the details right from the show floor, stay tuned!