Great Camera For Beginners!
Written: Feb 26 '01
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Pros: PC-Compatible Disks, Easy-To-Use, Battery Life, Special Features
Cons: Disk Storage, Picture Quality
The Bottom Line: This camera is well-suited for beginners who have never owned a digital camera before.
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| gd134's Full Review: Sony Mavica MVC-FD73 Digital Camera |
PROS:
PC-Compatible Disks –
The great attraction of the Sony Mavica line of digital cameras is that they use 3 1/2-inch floppy disks that users can simply pop into the floppy disk slot on a computer; it's an easy download*no costly cards, cables, or software. This convenience has made the Sony's into top sellers.
Easy-To-Use -
The FD73 is not the most advanced digital camera, but it has great features making it easy to use. This is definitely a beginner's camera. It takes decent pictures, The menus are easy to navigate, there is a multi-screen mode that will take nine images in two seconds, and animated picture playback.
Battery Life -
This camera has a long battery life due to Sony's rechargeable InfoLithium battery. They also added a meter that shows the remaining battery life in minutes. This feature is great because some cameras will just have a three-light system that is very ambiguous as to how much time is left on the battery.
Special Features -
The FD73 comes with some special effects (sepia, monotone, negative, solarization). However, there is no image editing software included. The 10X optical zoom (equivalent to a 40-400mm lens in a regular camera) makes up for the shortcomings of a 350K CCD that delivers only 640x480-pixel images, barely enough to produce acceptable 4x6-inch pictures. There's also a 320x240 e-mail mode. The 10X zoom works very well and brings distant objects really close. On the close-up end, the auto macro capability gets down to one inch. Furthermore, there is a 2 1/2-inch color LCD viewing screen, but no viewfinder. A solar window panel captures ambient light to prevent viewfinder washout. Additional features include six auto-exposure modes (portrait, sports, landscape, beach & snow, sunset & moon, pan focus), flash, auto-focus, and self-timer. Finally, there is also the ability to copy a disk inside the camera, an excellent option when you want to give a copy to friends without resorting to e-mail or making a copy on a computer!
CONS:
Disk Storage -
The only problem with this camera is the limited 1.4MB storage space on its floppy disks. This means that if you intend on taking a lot of pictures you will have to carry around a lot of floppy disks. On the FD73, the disks can record only 10-12 higher-quality images or 30-40 standard quality. While floppy storage is convenient, they have limited space to hold the output of the 2- and 3-megapixel CCD’s that are now on the market. Sony may have solved this limitation with its newest line of FD80, FD85, and FD95 Mavicas that take a Memory Stick floppy disk adapter, which expands the memory potential up to 44 times, or about 1,000 images (with a 64MB card; 256MB cards are in the works). Mavica users can even capture 40 minutes of MPEG video, but only in 1-minute intervals.
Picture Quality -
The picture quality on the “higher-quality” images is not so high compared to what is available on the market today, but if you are a novice in the field of cameras, the camera’s easy-to-use features outweigh the slight loss in picture quality.
CONCLUSION:
Now that you have examined the pros and cons of this camera, you must decide if you are a beginner looking for an affordable digital camera that is easy to use. If this is the case, then I highly recommend the Sony MVC-FD73. While this is an excellent starter camera, you can pay a little more money and get a camera that takes better quality pictures and stores more images.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Sony Electronics, Inc.
1 Sony Drive, MD #1D8
Park Ridge, NJ 07656
800-222-7669
http://www.sony.com
Warranty: Parts: 1 year; Labor: 1 year
Specifications: Maximum Resolution: 640 pixels, 480 pixels; Optical Zoom: 10X; Weight: 1.3 lbs.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 399
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Epinions.com ID:
gd134
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Location: Ithaca, NY
Reviews written: 17
Trusted by: 25 members
About Me:
I love electronics, so read my reviews. I also enjoy reading other people's reviews!
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