Customer Reviews

Sony Party-Shot Personal Photographer for Sony TX1 and WX1 Digital Cameras

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Cameras are getting smarter with face and smile recognition, and now, with this add on to the Sony WX1 or TX1 (think docking station) it'll take the pictures for you. The idea is that you insert your WX1 or TX1 (this will probably be compatible with future cameras if it catches on) and the unit will pan, zoom, focus, choose a good time with faces and smiles, and shoot the picture. Basically it's a stationary party photographer that lets you do party stuff while it takes pictures. But I got to borrow an early production unit, and I gave it a try. Set it on a small tripod on the table and let it go. The resulting pictures were, well, not half bad. It caught a lot of the people in the room, often with smiles, sometimes with odd expressions, and it certainly was fun to watch as well, panning around for a good shot...

Is it worth the money? Well, it's definitely not a NEED sort of item. It's a moderately expensive toy, but it is a fun one and seems to work reasonably well. Move it from the dining room to the patio to the kitchen during a party and you'll have plenty to post to facebook the next day. (No, it doesn't do that for you.)

I can picture this catching on and becoming pretty big, or disappearing without a trace into the world of ideas whose time did not come. Everyone I showed it to thought it was cool, but not necessarily something they'd be willing to pay good money for.

I just dont know why people have not posted reviews about this little gadget... it sold out fairly quick (estimated time for delivery on amazon is about 1 to 2 months)
Thats why ill write my review about this little gizmo.

These are probably the things you already know:
Its an automatic photographer
it uses two AA batteries
and no, IT WILL NOT WORK with your older cameras (only the WX1 and the TX1 will work)
it can be mounted on any tripod

The things you might not know:
it really is a novelty item, as a previous poster said: It might catch up (I think it will) or it might just fade away like the sony rolly
This thing is literally a robot. You put your camera on the base and thats it... the base will start looking for faces and snap some pictures.
It has a mind of its own... you let the base take the pics and thats about it.

I've used it on a family dinner (about two hours) and it took around 237 pics. about 160 pics were awesome... the other were not that great (blurry, low light etc)
I got positive comments about it, but some family members felt uncomfortable by it... why?

As I said before it has a mind of its own, and if it really likes you (and believe it or not, it choses its favorite subjects) it will stare at you for a long time until it gets a good picture (it took about 10 pictures of my brother before changing subjects)

A nice little feature it has is that it detects when a person blinks. In the weird event that it snaps a picture at the same time the subject closes his or her eyes then it will mark it as "blink eye detected" and immediately snap another one.

Dont expect to put this thing on a tripod and take pictures all around your dinning room. Remember that it is limited by the camera's lens. In other words, it works best with the WX1 (yes, I have both, the WX1 and the TX1)
This thing works best at a table, or with a closed group of people, not in a huge party.

aside from being a new gadget I think its very useful and practical because you forget about taking pics

On a side note:
It works best when you ignore it. Disable your cameras flash and let it go... Try it, you wont be dissapointed

I hope you find this a helpful review and yes.. I would buy this thing again!

(if you are also looking for the camera, go for the WX1... its not as feature packed as the TX1 but it has a better lens =) )

While I was very excited to get the PartyShot, it just didn't live up to expectations. The problem is that it's only designed to rotate around randomly and use the camera's built in smile detection function. What this means is that:
1. During its random, round and round, up and down, zooming in and out hunting, it has to find a face, that remains in postion for the face detection
AND
2. While holding the position on that face, the person has to smile, and hold the position long enough for it to lock in and take the photo
So yes, the first day we had this, while everybody was interested in it long enough to stand there, wait for it, hold the smile, it would SOMETIMES take a photo, and then only about 30% of the time. The other 70% of the time it didn't seem to find the smile or be able to focus even though the person was standing there still holding a smile!
Even worse, once the novelty wore off, and people didn't feel like standing there, still, smiling, or if the camera wasn't used in a well lit area, it wouldn't take any photos at all. Plus, even though it uses the flash, if it doesn't have enough light initially to find the face and the smile, it's not going to work. So in the end, you'll get more photos AND better photos by just holding the camera yourself and taking the picture. Believe it or not, this accessory would probably be better if it just took photos when it finds a face without trying to find a face and a smile, which never happens when there is no photographer holding the camera. So as much as I wanted to keep it, it was too expensive given it was a relatively useless lazy susan. It's really too bad, because it seems if the engineers would have just thought about this for a few minutes, they could have made the product much more realistic and useful.

When I saw the advertisement for this I knew I had to have it. It does what it's advertised to do, which in itself is pretty remarkable. Instead of always having one person out of the picture because they are the one taking the picture, everyone gets in the shots. I set this on the table the first time I used it during a dinner party. There were 11 people around the table and it caused the camera to rotate around the table scanning up, down and zooming in & out taking pictures when it finds a face. I haven't completely read the manual, or really read it at all, so I don't know at this point if you can set any picture taking parameters. It does take a lot of pictures, but who cares, you delete the ones you don't want. It's great for candid shots since after a few minutes you forget it's there and it just does it's thing. Granted you don't get to frame your subjects or pose them like you would if you were behind the camera, but that's not what what this is for. It's a random, candid picture taking machine. If you have a compatible camera, I saw buy it, it's inexpensive enough. If you don't have a compatible camera, buy the Sony TX1 or the one I have, the WX1. They are great cameras as well.

Even though Sony advertises this as compatible with the TX7 when I purchased this part the box did not include the necessary two plates for use with the TX7. If this happens call Sony Customer Service at:

1 877 865 7669

And ask them to ship PLATE B and B1 free of charge to you. These are the Sony part numbers:

184034821
418111601

This actually works reasonably well - as advertised. I used it with a WX1 and the pictures were generally quite good. I also bought the small travel tripod from Sony (not much, but fine for the price and for this purchase) and used the setup for a meeting and two family gatherings, all with the flash turned off. Of 150 pictures, perhaps 50 were respectable and several quite good. The camera works well on its own too.

I've used this on 6 different occasions now and I got nothing but disappointment. My camera sits on there fine and the stand rotates and tilts like it should, however... that's about all it does. Sure it took a few pictures here and there but not of peoples faces but out I'd say the ratio of actual pictures taken (pictures of people and faces, not just the top of the counters etc.) is about 1 in every 15 shots. It's pretty worthless. I gave it two stars because in each of the events that I took it too, entertained my friends and family. There would always be someone by the camera, trying to get it's attention so that we could try to get it to work. So yea, it's good for a couple chuckles and some random shots that actually count.

There is a weird paradox here....its supposed to be a party toy, correct? Well, I have used it several times during a party but eventually had to shut it down because it makes people very very uncomfortable. If you mount it at right level, it does takes good enough picture but the creepy factor really is a deal killer. It's cool toy nevertheless but its practical value is questionable.

I have used this camera for a a few days and have been surprised how sharp the images were even in a mixed light source (window light, tungsten and florescent from desk lamps). My three cats hate flash from my cameras, and split the scene when they see my camera flash. When I used the Sony WX-1 they hung out and acted like cats because no flash was used. I took some non-flash pictures and they were very sharp! My two nikon point and shoot cameras, the p6000 and p5100 were more expensive but are useless and noisy (Hi ISO)in low light. The nikons are a lot slower and cannot keep focused in low light. They also recover slower for the next picture. I also own a Fuji 70XR low light capable camera. It costs $100 less but the lens is slower (3.5 vs. 2.4 for the Sony) and less sharp in low light. The Fuji is great for sunny days but needs a lot of tweaking (use the "P" mode instead of the XR mode)for low light. It XR mode works but is trickier and less consistent than "P". The Sony is so small I confuse it with my Iphone and keys. The panorama function is works well even though it takes some practice. I highly recommend the WX1