Poor Compatibility as Camera Phone

[andydepressant]

There are two things the Z3 compact can't do that an iPhone can. And as someone who jumped ship because I phones can be limiting this is disappointing.

1. No manual focus, even using a paid camcorder app means attachment lenses are mostly useless on this phone.

2. Plug an external mic in? Sure, can I? I'm sure you'd rather people bought your one. But if using a beastgrip etc a little choice would be nice. But of course finding out what adaptor I need us a lotto that Sony provide no help with.

Apple are way ahead on these two fronts and hooking my students iphones up to these extended rigs is quick and simple. Meanwhile their teacher us still madly googling for answers.

[Rickard]

I'm afraid the camera doesn't have manual focus. In manual mode you have 5 options for focus mode, single, multi, touch, face detection and object tracking.

The phone uses a 5-pole CTIA jack. If you want to connect an external mic it needs to be compatible with 5-pole CTIA or you need an adapter that makes it compatible with this standard. We don't manufacture any adapters for this though but you can probably find 3:rd party adapters.

[andydepressant]

I am using this http://wpc.660d.edgecastcdn.net/80660D/downloads/sc4_datasheet.pdf

to plug this in: http://www.videoguys.com.au/Shop/p/23414/rode-videomic-pro-directional-super-cardioid-condenser-micr...

And I'm not only getting nothing from the mic, the internal mic overrides both the native camera app and the Cinema FV5 app.

I've also tried using iRig mics and the same problem occurs.

These are both apparently the same thing as with iPhones. Even with a CTIA to OMTP adaptor nothing happens.

Is this a software problem?!?!?!? You guys should put together a product list or something. This is way too much effort to make something that is advertised as a high-end camera phone able to do anything. Next phone will be an iPhone at this rate. TOO MUCH WORK.