The big picture? It's not worth it

Sony's QX100 lens, which can be attached to smartphones to convert them into cameras, is a lot of hassle for very little usefulness

Even though cameras on smart phones are getting better, for many amateur photographers they still leave a lot to be desired. Lugging a digital SLR camera around isn't the most practical thing to do. So what does one do? Sony would like us to acquire a lens which can be mounted on a smart phone and use it to click better quality images. Sounds good, doesn't it? But does it actually work? Let's find out. 

The QX 100 is a sleek, 18.2-megapixel Carl Zeiss lens which also works as a camera. There's a 3X telescope zoom, memory card slot, a shutter button - in short almost everything a digital camera has, except a display screen. 

To use it with a smart phone, you need NFC (near-field communication) if you're an Android phone user. If you have an iPhone - like I do - all you need is Wi-Fi connectivity. All this sounds extremely simple, until you actually start using the lens. 

Connecting the lens to your phone is a tedious process of attaching the clips of the lens to the body of the phone (it fit on the iPhone 4 and 5 and the Samsung Galaxy Grand in our tests). Okay, so I mounted the lens on your phone. Now I tried connecting over your Wi-Fi network. Nothing happened. Re-reading the manual told me that there's a another Wi-Fi network that you had to connect to - the password comes with the lens. After multiple attempts, I found that for some strange reason, the password provided was incorrect. 

On Samsung Galaxy Grand as well, and pairing it with NFC wasn't as big a hassle as pairing it on a Wi-Fi network. So Android users might find it relatively simple to use.

However, once you get past this, the QX100 took some very good pictures. You can zoom in and out, adjust the exposure and use different shooting modes. There are five modes, but there's no flash. You can't even use the flash on your phone to shoot in dim light. But even without the flash, the QX100 clicked adequate images. 

The lens also comes with a battery, which needs a recharge after clicking about 200 images. But for a smartphone camera, the QX100 is a real battery sucker and needs a charger to be kept handy. 

The camera allows you to store images only in the JPEG format. Considering that the Nokia Lumia 1020 allows you to capture RAW files, it's a bit odd to find the QX100 enabled only for the JPEG format. The resolution is also a bit disappointing and you, of course, can't capture full 1080 full HD videos - this is another oddity. 

The good thing about the lens is that you can use it as a camera as well but you won't be able to see what you have captured. We did try the option, but it feels extremely strange to not be able to review the pictures you've clicked. You have to store them on the microSD card and then transfer it on your phone. It reminds you of the old cameras where you didn't know what you had clicked until the prints were processed and came back from the studio. 

You can also download the PlayMemories app to share or upload pictures, but again this is quite a tedious process. The app, at least on iOS 7, is quite a pain to use - it takes a lot of time to transfer the images to your phone. 

For Rs 24,990, we certainly expected a much better product. Did it take better pictures than the camera on the iPhone 5? Of course, it did. But is it worth the effort and the money to actually buy this lens. Certainly not. The concept sounds remarkably innovative, but putting it to use doesn't seem worth it. Given that it is priced almost as much as some entry-level digital SLR cameras, it's hard to imagine what section of customers it appeals to.

Those who love to click photos on the smartphone - and that's a considerable number of people - to upload on social networking websites will not find the lens too useful. Those who do indulge in photography too will not be able to utilise the QX100.