If you’re focused on fashion and love selfies, Sony has a camera for you.
Announced in Shanghai and Hong Kong on Friday, the Cyber-shot DSC-KW11 looks like a perfume bottle, complete with Swarovski crystals. The “cap” of the bottle is a wide-angle 21-mm (millimeter) lens that can swivel 180 degrees for easy self-portrait pics.
It’s got a maximum aperture of F2 and a 19.2-megapixel Exmor RS sensor. It’s the first Cyber-shot featuring Sony’s stacked CMOS image sensor, which layers the pixel and circuit functions of the component without using a substrate.
The sensor is especially effective when shooting in low-light environments, according to Sony, which announced in July that it would boost production capacity for the sensors for use in smartphones and other imaging devices.
The body of the camera has a 3.3-inch OLED screen that can be swiped with a thumb to activate the timer mode. The unit also has Wi-Fi and NFC (near field communication) connectivity for sharing photos on social networks and linking to other mobile devices.
Yup.
The selfie camera is being targeted at female users in their late teens and twenties who enjoy fashion and taking photos of themselves, Sony said.
It has a Beauty Effect mode that can improve the appearance of skin tone and smoothness. It also has “eye widening” and “face slimming” options so users can tweak their appearance in photos.
Sales at Sony’s Imaging Products & Solutions segment, which includes compact digital cameras, fell by 9 percent in the three months to June 30. Sony posted a net profit of ¥26.8 billion ($261 million) for the quarter, a jump up from ¥3.1 billion a year earlier.
“While the compact camera market has been declining, the market for cameras that allow self-portraits has grown over the past few years, especially in Asia,” a spokeswoman at Sony’s Tokyo headquarters wrote in an email.
Available in white, pink, green or violet, the Cyber-shot DSC-KW11 is slated to ship in the Asia-Pacific region in October for about $811. Sony will see how it does before deciding on a wider launch, the spokeswoman said.