Digital Cameras - Did I make the right choice?

[njrqs]

Bill

I have a Sony MVC FD73 which uses normal 3.5" floppy disks. The interface with other people is magic, but I am limited to about 20 pics per disk.

I have had it for a few years but am keen on a smaller, lighter camera with more memory. Takes perfect pics though !

Psst - wana buy one anyone?

Cheers

 

[rmorgan]

rf33--

SanDisk and Lexar, at least, are making memory sticks now, and as a result Sony has dropped its 128 MB price down to $90--the same price, not surprisingly, as the SanDisk 128.

 

[patrickg]

Ron, No worries, mate. Your remarks are welcome as well as accurate. I was thinking more simply. There are a lot of cameras out there, some with CD drives, micro floppies, mem sticks, compact flash etc. It seemed to me (not a statistically assured sampling) that there was a greater variety of product evolving in models of potential interest to me that had compact flash. As we have and continue to invest in that technology it gives us flexibility of a sort within that "style." Note, I'm not saying anything about how "good" either technology is and am using pretty simplistic analysis to "guess" that compact flash will be around for a while in a variety of offerings.

I dodged the BetaMax bullet but bought a $5000 Unix based Tandy model 6000 Motorola 68K based computer running Unix because of the superior technology and linear address space of the chip and a mature long lived OS.

Everyone else bought an IBM or IBM clone and applications remained too expensive to acquire for me. Again I exercised the market maxim, BUY HIGH...SELL LOW. My batting average isn't perfect in the prediction department.

Patrick

 

[Argee]

Franz,
When you said <font color=blue>"no way to use a high power flash with it, either hot shoe or plug in."</font color=blue> do you mean it doesn't have the capability to accept an auxillary flash? The DSC75 from what I see, has a flash shoe and a sync port. But it may only take Sony's flash unit. Propietary? Yes, but I can live with that. I'll just add it to the growing number of flash units I have laying around.

<font color=blue>"definitely need a second battery, or ac adaptor."</font color=blue>
It comes with an AC adapter and built in battery charger. I do intend on getting a second battery and possibly a stand alone battery charger.

The zoom, I'll just have to wait and see. I looked at the Olympus C700 with a 10X optical zoom but just didn't like the feel of it in my hands, and I wanted something above the 3 mega pixel range. Just after I ordered it, I see Olympus introduced the C720....3 MP with an 8X optical zoom. Still the touchy feely thing has to be right. It's good to know there are extenders available if I'm not satisfied with the reach.

 

[rf33]

By George, you are right. I just saw that on the Lexar media web site. I wonder if they are licensing the rights from Sony, or if Sony just let the patent slide?? Oh well, shows how much I know. I really do like Sony electronics (I have several TV's VCR's, DVD's, etc. I just really never liked their "unique" approaches to storage. The one that stores images on CD's, now that might just be a winner in my book. As to the floppy storage Mavica's, for me, the low storage capacity and the high read / write times pretty much outweigh the benefit of the "any computer can read it" flexibility. Again, just my opinion. Patrick, I think that you and I are both members of the BUY HIGH, SELL LOW club. I have managed to do it with everything from computers to stocks, to horses. Not very good on the checkbook, but lotsa learning experience. Unfortunately, I am not a very quick learner.

 

[skent]

I was partial to Olympus C700 or the C2100. Started out two years ago with the Olympus D460 Zoom. Loved it but wanted more optical zoom. I have found digital zoom on the camera really hurts your resolution and besides, you can digitally zoom the jpg as much as you want after it's on your computer. Olympus seems to be the only ones under $500 that have the 10 X Optical Zoom. Most others have 3X or 2X optical. Other pros were the use of standard off the shelf AA batteries (or rechargable).

Ended up with a C700 with extended 2 year service and 128meg smartmedia for well under $500. (ecost.com)

 

[MDNY]

I acutally just bought (and outfitted) a SONY DSC-S85. I got the external flash, adapter for additional lenses, filters etc. Plus I also got (2) 128MB SONY Memory Sticks from PCMALL for $129 as a two pack deal. I returned the ones I bought from Best Buy that were $180 for two. Hey money is money. Now if we can just get started on the house I will have something to shoot pics of.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

The FD-91 does NOT have either a hot shoe, or sync capability built into the camera. Later models aparently do.
This annoys He!! out of me because I have some excellent flash units from my 35mm days. I could really benefit from additional flash from time to time.
I'm also not averse to having the ability to trigger just my gigantic flash to get the croud out of my way. I learned the BIG FLASH pscycology long ago, and it still works. If I'm going to be shooting where I need croud clearing ability, I just attach the big flash, and fire it even though it diesn't really help me take the picture.

The FD-91 is battery only, and it will only use a battery with the "Infolithium" chip. Sony was real cute on that bit of technology. There is an adapter to use the camera with AC power, costing an arm & leg, and only available from Sony.
The battery doesn't charge in the camera on the FD-91.

When I bought the camera, it was state of the art. Naturally, state of the art got better just about the time the camera arrived in my hands.

For the average user, the 14x zoom is probably sufficient, but for me, it was a bit lacking. Then again, I want to fill the frame with a Great Horned Owl sitting in a tree 400 feet away, and do it in lo light to boot. I've gotten lucky a few times. The range doubler and super wide angle adapters are about $40 so it isn't a major investment.

www.pricescan.com has an excellent listing of compeditive vendors on all digital cameras.

 

[blurrybill]

We just bought a Sony DSC-F707 (list $1000) for $630 at Sears using ads from the internet. We researched at length and found the most comprehensive tests we've seen at dpreview.com

Check out the forums and the tests on MANY cameras. The camera is rated very highly by the tester. There were some early problems that were corrected. This is a legitimate 5 megapixel camera and we love it so far. Your selection seems good. Battery life on the Sony's is usually good. We bought a 128 meg memory stick with it. Hopefully, you'll be seeing photos a bit later. Good luck with the camera.

Bill

 

[Frank_Mulligan]

Does it use Sony's memory stick technology? If so, save yourself some cash and buy the Sandisk brand at Costco. I saw it yesterday and a 128mb stick is about $63.00. Much cheaper than the Sony brand. I have a Sony digital camera and it's the best thing I ever bought. I always thought of them as unnecessary toys, but with the addition of our baby, it was the best purchase I ever made.