Sony MVC-FD100

(This conclusion and review is almost identical to the Sony MVC-FD200 review because these cameras are identical except for their image resolution.)

The Sony "Mavica" digital cameras have been around for many years now, beginning with the original MVC-FD5 camera and its 640x480 VGA-sized images. The key to their success is based on the fact that they store images on regular 3-1/2 inch floppy diskettes. Floppy diskettes (floppies) are cheap and plentiful but what makes them really useful is that they can be read on PC and Mac computers alike. You take a picture, it's recorded on the floppy, you take the floppy out of the camera and put it into your computer's drive and seconds later you are seeing the picture on the screen. No special cables or software needed, that's the beauty of it. However it's now 2002 and most Mac computers don't have floppy drives anymore and it's probably just a matter of time before they disappear from PCs as well.

Storing images on floppies has become problematic since the cameras have been upgraded with one and two-megapixel sensors. The FD5 wrote 640 x 480-pixel images that were only 30KB in size, you could store a whole pile of them on each diskette. The FD100 can capture images as large as 1280x960 that average about 215KB in size, so now only 6 of those fit on a floppy diskette. Of course you can use the smaller 1024x768 or 640x480 recording modes to fit more pictures on the diskette. And when you record MPEG movies, a 15-sec 320 x 240 movie will require the entire 1.4MB of space. To keep the convenience of the floppy disk but to greatly extend the camera's storage capability, Sony has now added a Memory Stick slot. Earlier FD Mavicas like the FD87 required the optional MSAC-FD2M floppy adapter to make use of Memory Sticks. Besides costing you more money, the FD2M was slow, cumbersome and required additional batteries. The FD100 can use any capacity Memory Stick right up to the 128MB stick which is currently the largest available.

In addition to being able to store many more images, Memory Sticks are faster R/W devices than the mechanical floppy drive and use less battery power. Another benefit of this larger recording media is finer quality images. The same 1600x1200 image that's 215KB on the floppy is recorded with less JPEG compression on the Memory Stick and is now approx. 550KB in size. Image data can be copied back and forth between the floppy drive and Memory Stick as desired using the menu options. To facilitate moving large amounts of data from the camera to the computer it has a builtin USB 1.1 data port.

The FD100 is a good camera that's easy to use. As with all of the Mavica cameras, it has a huge 2.5-inch color LCD that is used as both the viewfinder and the playback screen. Indoors these big color LCD displays are marvelous but they suffer when used outdoors in the bright sunlight. To help overcome this problem it's equipped with a solar-assisted LCD screen. There is a window across the top that lets the bright ambient light come in behind the LCD and illuminate it much the same way that the backlight works. This not only makes the display easier to see but it also cuts down on the amount of battery power used as those backlights are very power hungry devices. The FD100 is powered by a hefty NP-F330 InfoLITHIUM battery and can optionally use the even more powerful NP-F550 so portable power is not that big of an issue. The actual amount of battery power left is always displayed on the LCD in minutes so you always know what's left. Sony claims a fully charged NP-F330 is good for approx. 70 minutes of recording (approx. 750 images.) or 80 minutes of continuous playback and that's pretty much what we experienced in actual use.

Typical of most digital cameras the FD100 has a 3x optical zoom lens that covers the normal to moderate telephoto focal range. This zoom range is further enhanced by a 2x digital zoom feature but as with all digital zooms a certain amount of image degradation is to be expected but Sony's "Precision 2x" digital zoom is better than most. There is no "magic" involved here, a digital zoom simply enlarges the center section of the image to fill the entire frame, it's not the same as "optical" zoom. The digital portion of the zoom can be enabled or disabled in the menus so you don't accidentally use it when you don't want it. The onscreen icon that is displayed while zooming the lens in and out shows where the digital zoom range begins but it's only a tiny dividing line in an already tiny icon. If you like taking macro (closeup) pictures then you'll love the FD100, it can shoot as close as 1.25 inches!

The FD Mavica cameras are big compared to other digicams, you just can't make them any smaller because of the physical requirements of the 3-1/2 inch floppy diskette drive.  If you're looking for a small digital camera you should check out the ultra- compact models like the Cyber-shot P9. The P9 has a 4-megapixel CCD imager and 3x optical zoom in a tiny, pocket-sized package. And if that's too small there's always the mid-sized Cyber-shot S85, also 4-megapixels with a 3x zoom. Many people prefer the larger cameras because they're easier to hold steady. And in this day of ever-shrinking color displays there's no discounting the appeal of one of those great big 2.5-inch color LCDs.

No matter what your size or style choice, one of these Sony cameras will suit your needs, they all deliver excellent image quality at very competitive prices.