Sony's Mavica FD7, shown with U.S. Quarter
July 8th, 1998
Well, the more I read about the upcoming FD71, the less I feel like writing this page. If you're interested in buying an FD7, my advice is don't. Wait for the FD71 because it pretty much takes care of 90% of the annoying shortcomings of its predecessor. I saw one at PC Expo a few weeks ago, and it was a bit smaller than the FD7, but the sales person didn't talk much about the differences between it and the FD7. The only immediately obvious things were that the shutter button has been moved to the top of the unit, which is a questionable 'feature', and the manual focus has been moved to the more traditional location, i.e. on the lens ring. The feature by which it is allegedly possible to view the LCD screen even in direct sunlight was sketchy - all it seemed to do was drop the LCD display brightness to almost nil. Of course, there wasn't much direct sunlight in Jacob Javitz to test it.
Another side note regarding PC Expo. If any of you are thinking of buying a laptop, don't. Wait for the Sony VAIO to come out at the end of July. Definitely the star of the show, though I did spend some time at the Diamond booth, where they had a machine loaded with 2 VooDoo II cards running in SLI mode, playing Unreal at 1024x768. Hello, baby!!
Okay. The first thing that comes to mind with the Mavica is BULK. This camera is one hefty mother. Imagine one of these big, fat, technical books that cost between $39.99 and $59.99. You know the ones - around 800 pages. That's a pretty bulky, chunky size. If you were to slice off two inches from down the right side, then cut what's left in half horizontally, you've got something that's mavica size. Something a kid would have a tough time handling, and something you're going to have a difficult time carrying around in any pocket. ANY pocket. Let me stress that.
Let me give you another example - take seven CD cases and stack them up, then wrap tape or rubber bands round them. Try shoving that in a pocket. Get the idea? A FAT camera, ladies and gentlemen. F.A.T. The FD71 looked to be around five CD cases, or four and a half.
Mavica stacks up against 7 CD cases.
Apart from the portability thing, the camera's a joy to use. The zoom lets you frame some great shots. I have a great time snapping people candidly in Washington Square Park. Yes, the flash IS far too bright. I have several examples of this, even some taken at a decent distance. This, like a few other things, has been addressed in the FD71.
It's difficult to hold such a chunky camera steady when you shoot. This, obviously, is made worse when you zoom up.
You can't set the time of the autotimer. Seems like a trivial thing to implement, but it's not in there. It's a pain in the ass because the autotimer is a good way to get around the inability to hold the thing steady while pressing the shutter button. Except that 10 seconds is a long time to wait.
Manual focus is tricky, mainly due to the fact that you have an LCD screen instead of an optical, prismatic arrangement. You can fade into and out of focus with the little dial, but you get the feeling that there's still some focal precision to be had inside the sweet spot that gets lost in the low resolution of the LCD displays. You just have to take your best guess.
Shots taken in low light suck when you print them out. Not being an expert, I assume that this is common to digital photography in general. I mention it because it's something my Dad complains about a lot. They go really murky.
The lens cap doesn't stay on very tightly. It tends to pop off at the slightest provocation.
The battery lasts a long time. It charges very quickly (in an hour or so). I noticed that the charger light goes off when it's fully charged. I like that.
In Conclusion, this is an awesome toy. The millions of pictures on the web speak for themselves. A lot of people are using this to take a lot of decent snaps. Basically, I should have waited and bought the FD71. I know I'm not alone <Sigh>.
Mike Shivas
July 10th, 1998
I want to mention price. I researched this camera for weeks before buying it and found a lead on a web site that suggested I try B&H Photo, in New York, who were allegedly selling the FD7 at $599, about $100 cheaper than everyone else. I called them, and sure enough, they were selling it at that price. I called around a number of photography stores in New York, and heard "We can't touch that price" from most. Also, I went into the Wiz, which is about 40 blocks closer to my apartment, but their price guarantee does not cover digital cameras. Hello?
So anyway, I went up to B&H and after a couple of false starts where they didn't have a battery charged up, I bought an FD7. The rest, as they say, is history. They have a website. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/
August 26th, 1998
My girlfriend bought me a "Fanny Pack" (apologies to our British viewers) - one of those small bags that fasten around your waist. It's ideal for carrying the Mavica, and comes with pockets big enough for extra disks. I took off the camera's carrying strap and carried it around in my pack for the past 10 days in Mendocino, California. It may not be the best for instant access, but it's easily the best solution. We went canoeing and hiking and I could just forget about the camera until I needed it. If you get one of these things, expect to wear it on your side or your behind (covered by a spacious jacket) or you'll look pregnant.
There's one detail I want to gripe about, and again this may be fixed in the FD71 because it has more onboard RAM. The Mavica has a switch on the back, very reminiscent of the camcorder technology from which the Mavica has definitely evolved, that selects between 'camera' and 'play'. My admitedly minor gripe is that when you take a picture and then switch to play in order to see it, the camera feels the need to read it back off the disk, when it clearly must be in memory. Like I said, a minor gripe.
I noticed some interesting things this trip about the play mode, where you can view the pictures on the current disk. We resized one JPEG with PhotoShop and the camera displayed it. The image was quartered, and the Mavica displayed it in the upper left corner, surrounded by black. Not too suprising behaviour. We also rotated one image and it failed to display. Later in the trip, I found that one disk was flakey and the camera was unable to read the .411 thumbnail files. They appeared in the index screen as grey blocks.
I also noticed that the Mavica seems to be able to read the .411 thumbnail files instantly. My own program (okay, so it's written in Java) takes a significantly longer time, even on a 200MHz PII. The algorithm is pretty basic (CCIR), and I even set up look-up tables to minimize calculation, but the Mavica still rips in comparison. The index screens pop up instantly. I also notice that there only seems to be disk activity for the first 4 seconds of the 7 seconds it takes to display a full image on the camera. The red LED flashes for all 7 seconds. This suggests that the last 3 seconds are taken up by JPEG decompression.
Again, I can't tell you how nice it is to be able to take a stack of disks with you and just snap away at everything that moves. The Sony Mavica will turn you into a Japanese Tourist.
Mike