Mavica

A great picture of my Son and Grandson taken with my Mavica.

I wanted a digital camera and expected my wife to get me one for Christmas. I was thinking about one of the $200-$300 versions. Nope, she bought me an expensive Sony Mavica. At first, I was alarmed but two things won me over:

1) The picture quality and size (up to 1024x768)

2) The floppy disk

Unlike most cameras, the Mavica takes a floppy disk instead of a memory card. You can get 10 to 20 pictures on a disk (depending on the size of the pictures). While it is true that you can buy a card that is much bigger (and more expensive), I find I like the floppy for several reasons.

First, if you run out of room (and no matter how much room you have you will run out eventually) you can just get another floppy. When we go somewhere I put blank floppies in my left pocket. When I shoot up a floppy I write protect it and stick it in my right pocket. If I run out I can buy more floppies at any Wal Mart or grocery store for a few bucks. There are many places where I could not buy a compact flash card no matter what. Besides, they are more than a few bucks a piece.

Second, suppose I'm at a birthday party and I get a couple of cute shots of one of the kids. The parent comes up and wants a copy. Pop the floppy out and say here you go! Floppies are cheap (I buy them by the 100 and often get them for free with a rebate). I wouldn't just hand someone a compact flash card and tell them to keep it!

The cameras are loaded with features. There is a big LCD screen so you can see what you've shot right away. You can use the camera to format disks (if you need to -- normal disks are fine) or to erase bad shots. It will even copy a disk for you. The normal picture format is JPEG (or MPEG if you make a movie -- yep you can make short movies too). However, if you want an uncompressed photo, the camera will store in BMP format. Just don't expect to get more than one or two BMPs on a floppy.

There are several Mavica available (at different prices), so the link below will take you a page that shows them all. If you want to see some pictures I've taken with my Mavica, check them out. Once you've used a camera with a floppy, the other cameras will seem kind of crude.

Once you are taking digital pictures, check out the Internet Picture Frame on the navigation bar to the left!

Buy a Mavica Now!