No. Let's imagine a kind of C3PO with a camera in hand. I said robot, but no android. The Sony Party-Shot is a kind of platform with a section of a sphere, which integrates seamlessly with some compact cameras CyberShot from Sony , using its features face detection and smile to devote to making pictures left and right to all that you throw ... and without you have to worry about the camera.

After the automatic detection features of faces, smiles and closed eyes the only thing left to do is that the camera alone hiciese photos, and is what makes the Sony Party-Shot .

The "personal photographer" as Sony likes to call it, it only works at the moment, with two compact models: the CyberShot DSC-WX1 and CyberShot DSC-TX1 . This is because the camera has to be prepared to handle the Party-Shot, because their functions are accessed from the menus of the camera.

For several days I could not test this particular robot, along with the CyberShot DSC-WX1 of which I spoke recently, and the truth is that the results have surprised me.

The Party-Shot Sony must be powered with batteries to get the best performance. By doing so we can put anywhere and rotates up to 360 º making pictures. If buy a power supply (not included) to forget about the batteries, the most that you can rotate it 180 degrees, it will depend on the cable. In that case, a good place to place by the TV can also connect your video output to be seeing on screen the photos you're doing.

After placing the camera on the Party-Shot, we can access its menus to adjust the radius of rotation (90 º, 180 º or 360 º) or the firing frequency in three different cadences. No one can speak of an exact number of shots per minute as it depends on what it takes to frame and focus.

The base fits perfectly with the camera, so that people are using face detection, smile and wait. It can detect up to eight faces while looking for the best frame and setting parameters for everyone out focused and well lit. Unfortunately it takes a while since a face is detected until you shoot, so the picture may not be any trace of a smile ... and sometimes the person, although moving slowly, the camera will face to achieve your goal.

Sony says you will get photos with "a beautiful composition." Obviously you can not ask a robot that has a particular artistic sensibility, but it is true that the system avoids the frames centered, as it might seem at first, and will surprise us with different and varied compositions. Even take several photos of the same scene with different zoom settings and several frames. In addition to the rotation, the camera can be tilted up and down, so it's easy to change the frames. However, sometimes the system is wrong, and can detect as expensive things that really are not.

It is certainly a striking accessory, you may find interesting if you are accustomed to hold meetings at home and whenever you run out of photos, for being behind the camera. And if someone goes wrong in the pictures, can not blame anyone ...

The price of the Sony Party-Shot is 150 euros, maybe a little high, but acceptable for a treat like this. The downside is that you need one of the two chambers discussed above, that cost 350 and 380 euros.