Sony Reviews

This is my first digital camera, and I am glad that I bought it! It is easy to learn to use, taking me less than 1 hour to become extremely proficient using it.

Contrary to other cameras, the included battery has a long life, lasting about 1 1/2 hours. I recommend that you purchase an extra though so that you'll always have an ample supply of power. Another plus with this camera is that the batteries charge quickly, something like 2 hours.

Although limited to 1 MB, the 3.5 inch floppy disk storage method is simple and very convenient. Remove the disk from the camera, pop it into your desktop, and then call up the picture. Easy and fast. On the low resolution you can get about 35 pictures to a floppy and about 10 on the highest resolution.

Alother fun feature is the TV playback. Just plug the included cable into the audio/video plug in your TV or VCR and then you operate the camera as you would a remote control. Just like a slide show of your own creation on TV. This a really nicxe feature for showing pictures to family and/or company.

Overall, this is a nice product and worth the extra money. I am very glad that I got it, and you will too. If your only looking for basic internet picture taking though, this is not for you b/c of the numerous features.

What an AWESOME camera -- I can't say enough good about this camera. It is so user friendly that we purchased it for my 70+ year old parents for Christmas, and they are already using it to sell things at online auction sites. Resolution is EXCELLENT, ease of use is exceptional, and you cannot beat the convenience of just popping a disk into your computer and pulling up the images -- WHY would anyone waste their time (and more importantly their money) on those digital cameras with dumb "smart cards" that require cabling into your computer and all kinds of fancy software. The Sony comes with respectable software, but I HIGHLY recommend purchasing PICTURE IT software -- it is ideal for use with this camera. If I had one criticism it would be about storage space - the floppies don't hold as many pictures as I'd like, but it's really not a big issue unless you're going out somewhere with the intention of taking a lot of pictures and plowing through them later (in which case you just need to take some spare floppies with you). Truly a camera you will buy and be enjoying immediately.

The MVC-FD88 is the best camera I've ever used. We've now left behind our old 35mm camera in favor of using this exclusively. The camera takes excellent, very high quality pictures, indistinguishable from a good quality 35mm. Resolution is excellent, pictures taken both in low light and bright light show good color results. Used with Microsoft's Picture It software, this is a top line camera. On our recent trip, we took over 300 pictures using this camera. I've never gotten such a high percentage of shots that were excellent before.

Some important points: Use of the floppies for storage is perfect. We took twice as many as we expected to use on an overseas trip recently and began to run out. No problem, the nearest computer store had plenty at reasonable prices. The original battery life isn't really sufficient for the heavy user, purchase of the newer longer life battery is a big boost. A UV filter is also a boost just like with a standard 35mm, particularly on very bright days. The LCD is sometimes hard to see in very bright light, a viewfinder for those occasions would help. (However, I find I get better composition with the LCD in general since I can see greater detail.) Storage time on the camera can be somewhat slow when using poor quality floppies. It's worth investing in slightly more expensive, higher quality floppies to ensure the 2 sec recording time.

Overall, a definite 5 star camera.

I bought the FD87 thinking that I would never run out of media on long trips; I could always go buy more disks, or erase some shots. Unfortunately I didn't consider how inconvienient that would be. Lugging 40 floppy disks around Disney Land along with a bulky camera was not fun. Taking it skiing was a whole other pain in the rear. Another problem is the inherent unreliability of floppy disks. I have lost many shots due to disk errors. I liked the Mpeg mode when I bought it, until I discovered you cannot stop the camera once you begin recording. This is stupid. The camera takes good pictures, if your activity is taking pictures. Do not, however, buy this camera if you plan to take pictures while involved in any other activity. It is very impractical. There are two good points though. The battery lasts forever and the camera formats disks about 20 times faster than a PC.

I purchase for a school district and I only buy Mavicas. The quality is very good for most school projects. The floppy drive option is great because if you check a camera out to people, you do not want to use expensive memory sticks that can be lost. Also, when a person turns the camera in, the next person is can take it immediately. There is no time to bother with download. One person keeps the disks, turns the camera in, and the next person can take it without a download hassle. The nice thing about this model is that you have the choice between disks and a memory stick if you want the extra space for high quality and quantity.

There are two disadvantages to this camera over previous models. It is very easy in holding the camera to hit one of the three buttons at the bottom of the back and accidentally change a setting which can distort a picture. Students have done this. Example, some kids took a snapshot after the camera had been set up for them but their fingers hit the program button in accidentally and changed the camera to the moon setting for slow shutter speed -- as in a night photo. As a result their shots were blurred. The other disadvantage is that you have to plug the camera into the wall to charge the battery. The older models allowed you to operate the battery charger without plugging it into the camera.

One note. Cameras in this price range cannot stop action. Do not use this kind of camera for stop-action sports. They do not emulate the shutter speed of a professional 35mm camera which uses film. They are wonderful for low light and outperforma any film-based camera for low light shots that do not need to stop action.

The thing that attracted me most to this camera was the fact that I didn't have to buy one of those $100 memory sticks. I can, if I were planning to take a great deal of photos and don't want to carry extra disks around, but it's greta for people like me who just want to use it for recreational purposes.
I was at first turned off by the size, but this is part of the beauty of being able to save the files directly onto disk which inserts into the camera itself (which means the camera has to be the size of a floppy- which roughly it is). Besides, The size is a good fit to the hands and makes shaky hands less of a problem.
The zoom is great. You can really get close-up shots from a distance without compromising image quality or color. The display screen on the back of the camera is larger than on most, which makes it easier to choose which photos I want to keep/delete without popping the disk into the computer to take a closer look.
This camera has plenty of fun features to keep anyone entertained for a long period of time, and the battery life is great. The charger reharges the battery quickly when it does need to be charged.
The photo quality is great both indoors and out, night and day. There are differet settings for landscapes, people, etc, as well as light, and they do make a pleasing difference. This camera can be used in any situation.
Overall, I am very happy with my purhase. Sony is a terrific brand, after all.

Good camera with easy viewing on a computer using floppy disks. I was even able to get more "film" in Cartegena, Columbia. Just ask for "diskettes". The LCD display can be hard to see if bright sun is shining on it, but point and click and you can see the picture as it records on the disk in the shade of your body. If you want to see the image for a longer time just slide the mode switch from "Still" to "Play" and see all the images taken so far. Slide the switch to Movie and take MPG digital movie clips with sound. These too can be reviewed with sound in just seconds after recording on disk. The sound is as good as my 8 mm video camera. At the highest resolution expect three ".MPG" 5 second clips, at the lowest, six 5 second clips. With the stills, you will record 10 ".JPG" images at the highest and 23 at the lowest resolution per standard 1.4 MB floppy disk. These numbers vary depending on program and zoom settings.

A fun camera for amature photagraphy and recording your vacation. On the down side I am ready to move on to a higher mega pixel rating. 35 mm photography still takes better pictures and I'm hoping a higher rating will give me better zoom in capabilities.

I am a beginner at using digital cameras. Actually I know enough to be dangerous!! The Sony MVC-FD83 camera arrived exactly as described; excellent condition. I've found it very easy to use. I prefer the simplicity of using a floppy disc rather than the memory stick. Take the disc out of the camera and pop it into the computer and PRESTO - I've got GREAT pictures to print or email. No more picture developing costs! I contacted the seller by email before purchasing the camera. David answered all my questions promptly and in great detail. I HIGHLY recommend him. It was a pleasant shopping experience. Thank You Amazon.com and Thank You David.

We bought this camera a couple of years ago and we are very pleased with it.

It has a long zoom and can get clear, focused pictures of things yards away.
It can take a minute of digital video with great picture quality.
You do not need to worry about memory sticks or any special slots in your computer. You simply pop in a floppy disc, take tons of pictures and pop the disc in your computer. Instantly, you have great picture.
Small and lightweight.
Has great effects such as sepia, B&W, Negitive, and solorize. You can do all kinds of effects with your sixty seconds of movie.
There is a flash and a giant backlit screen.
You can do slideshows.
Works seamlessly with any picture, movie making and writing program.

I reccomend buying the Mavica camera. It was the original and first digital camera ever made.

The camera is convenient with the ability to store photos directly to floppy disk, and this is quite fun for a time, until you realize that:

the camera is bulky and heavy and not only do youhave to carry the camera around, but also a number of floppy disks, extra battery and any accessories.

The resolution is awful. You end up with grainy, blurry photos.

Printing a photo is just not an option. The quality is too awful. You need more MP for that.

The camera has a very long delay. You will hold your finger down for five to ten seconds to take the picture. By the time the camera takes the picture, most likely whatever you were trying to capture is gone, and if it is a posed person then you end up with a fake looking uncomfortable pose.

The colors turn out shadowy and they highlight all the bad things. If your model has dark circles under the eyes, they now look like tires.

There are simply too many faults to this camera. It may be suitable for very casual use, like snapshots of the family petsor a vacation but if you want GOOD pictures, this is not the camera.

Given camera as a gift, and as a novice is incredibly easy to use. However...I quickly discovered (after spending nearly $100 on prints) that obtaining quality 4x6 prints is not an option. In order to get decent resolution I am limited to wallet sized pictures. Bottom line??? If you prefer to thumb through a photo album years later, strongly consider a different camera with higher mega pixels.

This is my introduction to the digital camera. So far, I'm very pleased with the results. The Mavica is programmed with five picture formats: Fine, Sepia, B&W, Negative Art, and Solarize. It is easy to use, even for the beginner. I disagree with some of the reviewers regarding its size. I was able to shove it in my purse when I wasn't using it; however, for the price, I would've liked to see it come with an extra battery and a carrying case. It does come with a shoulder strap, which isn't uncomfortable. The camera has zoom capability, but I found that you have to be careful with blurring. I don't fault the camera, but the photographer. I have had some experience with blurred pictures and red-eyes. Photo-enhancing software such as PhotoShop will take care of that. I know because I've tried. The Mavica works well with Macs and PCs. The only problem I came across was sending the pictures after editing them with PhotoShop. If your mother doesn't have the same software that you do, then you will have to send that blurry or red-eyed picture of Junior. Oh, well. I like this camera, but if I win the lottery someday, I will go out and buy a CD camera because of the memory constraints that these floppy-based cameras have.

After spending several weeks researching the digital camera market I finally settled on the Mavica CD 1000. The only problem was it was a whole lot more camera than I really needed. So what does Sony do? They bring out the CD-200. Problem solved. Still more camera than I really needed but boy, what a camera!! I've been using my new 200 for a little over a month now and am just as impressed and excited with it as I was on the first day. It has almost all of the features of the CD1000, even the ability to take short MPEG movies, without the extra weight and size. Image quaity, ease of use, features, flexibility.... it's got it all. Much smaller than the 1000, even my 7 year old son has no problem handling it. The viewfinder screen is sharp, clear, and easy to see in almost all lighting conditions. The only exception is very dark flash conditions and the built-in twilight light takes care of that.

As with the 1000, the CD storage makes digital photography effortless. Transfering pictures using your CDR-RW drive or the USB cable is a no-brainer. Sony's CD's are a little pricy but Memorex's Pocket CD's work just as well, and their capacity is a little bigger. While on vacation I was able to get 165 large image (1600x1200) shots at high resolution on a single CD. The 5-pack of Memorex CD's cost about $1.80 ea vs 6 rolls of film at $5-6 ea plus processing. Using this camera has actually saved me money in film and developing.

As with the 1000 there is a lag time between pressing the button and taking the photo. Pressing the button to Half-Shutter and waiting for your picture pretty much solves that. Excellent zoom, the manual says the image degrades the more zoom you use but I can't tell the difference. The picture quality is still excellent. Battery life is about 2-1/2 hours of shooting time. Carrying an extra battery will keep you shooting from dusk to dawn and then some. Sony has a camera that has taken point and shoot to point, shoot and print. It's that easy.

Contrary to what geekysteve from Arkansas says it is not necessary to finalize a disc before picking photos from it. Just pop it into your CD-RW drive and you can copy over one photo, all photos or whatever you choose. I still use this camera almost every day and it's still the best camera in its class.

This is the second digital camera I've owned. It takes great pictures and you can store a ton of them (I get ~300 at 1200x1600) on a cd. It takes great pictures in automatic mode but being able to kick it into full manual (shutter speed, focus, aperture) means you can get pictures in circumstances that the point and click mode would choke on.

The fact that you don't have to worry about uploading images off a memory card makes it the perfect camera for long trips. I took it and a couple cds to Thailand for two months and came back with a ton of great pictures. Best of all I didn't have to take a laptop or ration my picture taking. I also took it on a month long bike trip and it worked great. The long battery life and fast charge time are also strong features in it's favor. It's solidly constructed, a year and a half later it's still clicking away.

One reviewer was complaining about drivers. HE IS TOTALLY WRONG! It sounds like he didn't have a USB port, you don't ever have to take the cds out of the camera. The device is a USB CD/RW drive, you plug it in and it shows up as a cdrom drive. I've used it with Win2000 and 98 and it's fine. No [bad] program to use to get the photos off, you just drag a copy off the cd and onto your computer. With a little poking you can plug it into your computer and actually burn the cds (though they are the little ones).

As I said in the subject the problem with the camera is that it's just too big. The cd drive makes it a funny shape that's kind of a pain. Also the lack of an optical viewfinder [is sort of bad], it's a sacrifice to the cd drive. That said I'd buy this camera again in a minute.

This camera has my vote for one of the best cameras made by Sony, or for that matter anybody! The largest I enlarge my pictures is 8 x 10 and it's perfect for that! When you figure what is the size most people think of for a picture, its 8 x 10, what else! The control of this camera rivals 35mm, and then the camera is adaptable to various filter systems. Who could what anything else!...Julian Gang

I purchased my Memory Stick Pro Duo 256 for my Sony Clie SJ-25. It works great! It is super fast and has more than enough space. Just don't mistake it for a stick of gum! The best part was that it was the same price as older model Memory Sticks such as memory stick select, and Memory Stick Pro! For devices that do not take Memory Stick Duo, but take Memory Stick, a Memory Stick Duo adapter is included in the package. I would highly recommed this to anyone who is looking for a fast, lower cost Memory Stick.

This is a great way to store photos or mpeg movies. It is small enough and works great most of the time. I have a small problem
with it, it does not always read.. My camera says "no memory stick available" when in fact it is in my camera. not sure if it is a memory stick problem or a camera problem...although I will purchase again.

Just to clarify the previous negative review, yes this 256MB memory stick pro is not compatible with many older devices, but I think sony is doing a good job at addressing this .. they have a separate product, a 256MB memory stick with memory select, that is basically an old style memory stick with two switchable 128MB memory banks. I have several older mem stick devices and am happy that they are offering this product that allows 256MB for older devices. Search for "MSA128S2" for more info.

you people need to realize that this is a Memory Stick PRO, and not
just the ordinary kind. All memory stick pros won't work on your old cameras, so don't review this stick as bad just because you didn't notice that