Sony MVC-FD83 Mavica

Review Date
October 3, 2000

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Used product for
6 Months

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5, 1 votes

Reviewed by
Theresa , Beginner , from Grand Forks

Summary
This camera is so easy to use, even the men in the field feel comfortable using it. It is good for still shots. We are a construction business and it works great for photographing job sites. We don't have to worry about our men losing expensive memory cartridges!

Strengths
Good battery life.
Pictures look as good as a reg. photo when printed out!

Weaknesses
Sort of large to carry around.
The disks don't hold enough images.

Similar Products Used
None

Review Date
August 23, 2000

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Used product for
2 Years

Reviewed by
Bruce G. , Intermediate , from Portland, OR, USA

Summary
This camera provides a nice blend of ease of use (menu's, flopppys, design), advanced features (effects, threaded lens, good exposure range, man focus), and cost of operation (battery, floppys, same filters as Sony camcorders). The zoom is decent 3x opt, 2x dig but the digital zoom gets a little grainy. The viewscreen is large and provides much detail. No manual shutter settings, have to experiment with the different modes to find desired mode. Flash is limited, no option for ext. flash. Red operation light on front of camera appears in pictures through glass & water.

Strengths
Floppy storage, battery life, menus, audio/video out, effects, A/E modes, threaded lens (for filters), LCD.

Weaknesses
Delay between pictures, size, JPEG compression ratio, no red-eye reduction, no manual shutter settings. Interpolated mode not as sharp as actual pictures.

Similar Products Used
Sony DCS-70, Sony FD-71

Customer Service
Excelent when needed.

Review Date
August 9, 2000

Overall Rating
 2 of 5

Used product for
6 Months

Reviewed by
Mac Mirabile , Intermediate , from Auburn, AL, USA

Summary
Resolution too low for my needs. camera itself no very fast or easy to use.

Strengths
Floppy disk drive...nice LCD screen.

Weaknesses
Takes too long to take a picture. controls are very uer friendly. Picture quality leaves a lot to be desired. Too few pictures fit on DISK.

Similar Products Used
KODAK DC260

Customer Service
N/A/

Review Date
August 2, 2000

Overall Rating
 3 of 5

Used product for
1 Year

Reviewed by
Jason White , Intermediate , from Columbus

Summary
The Mavica FD83 is a pretty simple camera to use with fairly decent resolution. Images are certainly good enough to make good 5x7 prints, and can even pass as 8x10's. Using a floppy disk for storage makes it very easy to transfer images from the camer to any computer and very cheap to buy new storage. For those who like to save the "originals", this is an especially convenient form of storage, and much more affordable than memory cards.

The biggest weakness of the camera is also one of its benefits: the floppy disk. Writing to the floppy disk can be slow and often precludes taking snap shots in quick succession; by the time the first image has been saved to disk the scene has already changed. Floppies are also only able to store 4 - 8 high-res images per disk, which means a lot of disk changing on a busy photo day.

The Mavica also has a tendency to delay slightly between the pressing of the shutter button and the actual taking of the picture. I doubt I could measure the delay, but it is enough that when taking action shots you will not get a freeze-frame of the action at the second you press the button. This can be frustrating when you get a blurred image of the side of someone's head instead of that split-second smile flashed just an instant before.

In all, this is a good camera. It could stand to be priced a bit lower, but it does offer a good range of features for beginner to intermediate digital camera users.

Strengths
Easy to use, good image quality, easy to transfer images anywhere

Weaknesses
low resolution, slow to save images to disk

Similar Products Used
None

Review Date
June 16, 2000

Overall Rating
 3 of 5

Used product for
6 Months

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5, 1 votes

Reviewed by
Dan , Intermediate , from Wirsz, MD, USA

Summary
I found this camera very easy to use. I did not have to use the manual for anything except instructions on how to best charge the batteries. It takes very nice pictures and has a decent selection of programs for shooting pictures in a variety of settings from low light to macro to scenery. It is excellent for posting pictures on the internet. It is not particularly good for printing your own pictures at anthing above a 3x4 inch print. Anything above that looks very grainy and is not acceptable in my opinion. The Floppy drive is both a benefit and a detriment. It is very easy to use to transfer pictures to any computer, but it is limiting because of the size and slowness of the floppy disc. Overall I recommend this camera to anyone who wants to take pictures for posting on the internet or for viewing on their computer or TV. But if you are trying to replace your regular film camera I would advise you to get a camera with considerably higher resoulution.

Strengths
easy to use
floppy disk storage for quick transfer to any computer.
Floppy discs are very cheap and readily available.
Optical zoom is nice.
Lithium Ion Battery

Weaknesses
Floppy disk storage is limiting due to 1.44 size especially with the higher resolutions.
Digital zoom makes for grainy pictures.
Even with maximum resolution the picture qualitly is not so great for printing anything above a 3" by 4" print.

Similar Products Used
None

Customer Service
Not used