I've been looking at Digtal Cameras for a few years now, and I think it's finally time I got one.  For some reason I like the Sony CD Mavica series.  The biggest plus I see is the ablility to record right to CD's and the ability to do pictures and movies with sound.  Has anyone had experience with these?  Could someone suggest something similar or a possibe better buy?  Here's the specs on the camera I'm looking at:



• Imaging Device: 1/2.7" 3.2 Megapixel Super HAD™ CCD

• Recording Media: 3" (8cm) CD-R/RW Optical Disc

• Zoom: 3X Optical, 3.2X Smart Zoom (at VGA size), 9.6X Total

• Filter Diameter: 37mm

• Focal Length: 6.4 - 19.2mm

• 35mm Equivalent: 41 - 123mm

• Aperture: f3.8 - 3.9

• Focus: 3 Area Multi-Point AF, 5 Step Manual Preset

• Minimum Focus Distance: 19.7" (50 cm)

• Macro Focus Distance: 3.9" (10 cm)

• Shutter Speed: Auto, 1/30 – 1/1000 sec, Twilight 1 sec – 1/1000

• Manual Exposure: ±2.0 EV, 1/3 EV Steps

• Color LCD: 2.5" 123K Pixels Low Temperature Polysilicon TFT

• Flash Modes: Auto/Forced On/Forced Off/Slow Synchro

• Red-Eye Reduction: On/Off

• Flash Effective Range: 1.6 – 8.2 ft (0.5 – 2.5m)

• White Balance: Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent, Incandescent, Flash

• Picture Effects: Black & White, Solarize, Sepia, Negative Art

• ISO: Auto, 100, 200, 400

• Scene Modes: Twilight, Twilight Portrait, Landscape, Beach, Snow, Fireworks, Fast Shutter

• Self Timer: Yes, 10 Seconds

• Video Output: Yes NTSC/PAL Selectable

• Still Image Modes: JPEG (Fine/Std.), TIFF, Burst, Email, Voice Memo

• MPEG Movie Modes: MPEG VX (640x480, 16fps, with audio), MPEG Video Mail (160x112, 8 fps with audio)

• Clip Motion: Normal (160x120), Mobile (80x72)

• Microphone/Speaker: Yes/Yes

• USB Terminal: Yes, Supports USB 2.0

• Battery Type/Capacity: InfoLithium® NP-FM50 1180 mAh Rated

• Supplied Software: Pixela™ Image Mixer Software for Sony v1.5, USB Driver SPVD-010

• OS Compatibility: Microsoft® Windows® 98/98SE/Me/2000 Professional/XP Home/Pro; Macintosh® OS 10.1/10.2

• Supplied Accessories: NP-FM50 InfoLithium® Rechargeable Battery, AC-L15 AC Adaptor/In-camera Charger, A/V and USB Cables, Shoulder Strap, Lens Cap, MCR-156A CD-R Media, MCRW-156A CD-RW Media; Software CD-ROM

• Dimensions (W/H/D): 5 3/16" x 3 5/8" x 2 7/8" (131.7 x 92.3 x 73.8mm)

• Weight: 1 lb 2 oz (522g) (w/Battery, CD-R/RW, Strap)




Wally World has this camera for about 350, what say ye digital camera gods?

My main concern with digital cameras these days is how quickly it takes to write to whatever storage media the camera uses.  My old Nikon can be slow if I use the highest quality settings.  I can only imagine that CD-R/RW is slower, but this is only speculation based on the fact that changing bits electronically from 0 to 1 is a lot faster than burning 0s and 1s to a disk.

At any rate, the slower it takes, the longer you have to wait for that follow-up shot.

If it were me, I think I'd be happier with getting a plain old digital camera for stills now, and a separate digital video camera for video later.  Most of the reviews I've seen recently tend to concur - digital cameras with video options aren't as great as digital video cameras, and digital video cameras can't compete with the still picture quality of digital cameras.

Course, I'm no photography nut, so I could be WAAAAY behind on the latest and greatest technology.  I'm also very biased towards Nikon, though I hear Canon has been putting out great stuff, too.

Well I have my cheapie Cannon EOS Rebel G, and I love it to death, I just hate paying the extra 5-6 bucks per roll to get my pictures posted online or burned to CD.

Canon has been putting out lots of great cameras lately and starting the SLR cameras under the $1000 price point.

If you want to look at some good reviews of cameras and a great place to compare quality is at www.dpreview.com. That is one of the best if not the best digital camera review sites.

One of the problems I see with your choice Delta, is that it will be slow as poo writing each image to the disk, the recycle time (time between pictures) will be very long and you'll miss shots because of it.

For purchasing, check out eBay first, I see some G2 cameras there for about $300 give or take and those are 4MP. Also for online purchases try B&H photo video bhphotovideo.com.

peace!

Quoted: One of the problems I see with your choice Delta, is that it will be slow as poo writing each image to the disk, the recycle time (time between pictures) will be very long and you'll miss shots because of it.

Another one that we both didn't think about is battery life.  How long are those batteries gonna last when they are controlling that LCD panel on the back, the flash, and a frickin' laser assembly?

Delta, I just noticed the specs for the movies.  16 frames/second is, well, crap.  If you are playing a video game on your computer, anything much under 30fps becomes unplayable.  Cartoons have more frames/second than that camera can do.  That said, definitely do NOT consider the video capabilities of this camera as a check mark on the "reason to buy" side.  It's a neato add-on, but it's not good enough for that add-on to be a decision maker.

Have any of you freaks have used one of these cameras? Then hush your mouth! My sister has one and it seems there is internal memory that is used as a buffer, so it doesn't write immediately to the cd...smucks. She does not like the movie quality. She likes the cd part.

I like my compact flash, but I have a laptop with cd burner so I can d/l the pics and burn them.

These are nice cameras.

Personally, I don't like them.

Just like when buying a gun, go to stores(Best Buy, MicroCenter, Circuit City) and fondle some. Make sure they fit your hand and your fingers don't block stuff. You wouldn't want to shoot your finger....off. Wait...

I second the dpreview.com comments. Very accurate on the camera's I own and have used.

BUY IT OFF THE INTERNET!!!

Check pricescan.com and pricewatch.com(there are others) and find a vendor that looks reputable(check reviews). Don’t just pick the lowest price. CHECK RETURN POLICIES. I bought my last two cameras that way. Oh, wolfcamera.com sometimes has good deals, a buddy likes them, and free shipping!

If you have any questions, axe.


ByteTheBullet  (-:

Quoted: Have any of you freaks have used one of these cameras? Then hush your mouth! My sister has one and it seems there is internal memory that is used as a buffer, so it doesn't write immediately to the cd...smucks. She does not like the movie quality. She likes the cd part.

I can't think of a digital camera that I've ever heard of that doesn't have an internal buffer.  The problem is that when a camera using memory stick or compact flash gets a filled buffer, it writes it to the stick/card relatively quickly and you are on your way to your follow-up shot.  However, if the buffer fills up in a camera that writes to CDs, what is the wait time while the photo is being burned to disk?

The last time I fooled around with a Mavica that wrote to CDs was when they first hit Best Buy and cost approximately 1 arm and half a leg.  Shot to shot was S-L-O-W - especially for high quality photos.  My rusty trusty Nikon CoolPix 700 is no speed demon by any stretch of the imagination when writing in TIFF format at 1600x1200 resolution, but normal shot-to-shot was much faster than the Sony.

Since then, Compact Flash technology has greatly improved, as has CD-R/RW writing speeds, though.

I second the buying online bit.  You'll save a bundle.  Make sure you get exactly what you want - a lot of outfits will try to pawn off refurb units as new.

I love Nikon, but this is my next Digital Camera purchase: Sony Cybershot DSC-F828
www.dpreview.com/articles/sonydscf828/

~ s0ulzer0

Great point, another reason to get a Canon. The G2 has the longest battery life of just about any digicam out there, it can take over 300 pics on a single charge and will last about 3 hours+ on a single charge using the LCD.
More reasons I bought the G2 was

Ability to add lenses and filters
Longer/better video (2 sizes)
Swivel LCD
Manual settings for custom shots
Hotshoe for external flash
COMPACT FLASH MEMORY!! All other memory sucks IMO.

Quoted: I love Nikon, but this is my next Digital Camera purchase: Sony Cybershot DSC-F828 www.dpreview.com/articles/sonydscf828/ ~ s0ulzer0

Wow.  THAT is a cool camera.  And by cool, I mean totally sweet.  Helluva price, too.