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Sony Mavica FD 92 Digital Camera
| The Sony FD92 was superseded in October 2002, but it is such a good all round camera absolutely ideal for the motorhome mobile lifestyle we have included info here, as it is a very good unit to think about buying used. You could also still possibly pick one up from smaller dealers. It is a dual media camera. This means it uses a standard floppy disk as well as a conventional memory stick. It is a 1.6 megapixel camera with 8 times optical zoom. You can take up to 15 seconds of MPEG movie with sound. Memory sticks come in all sizes up to 128 meg. Downloading is via a USB port. Batteries are the same ones used in Sony video cameras and are the intelligent type - tells you accurately how much time is left. This camera is very easy to drive as long as you do not need to change menus a lot. Flash, focus and program have instant access buttons so you don't have to drill down through a large hierarchy of folders. Changing flash output settings is a pain as you do have to drill down! A macro function is built in and works beautifully. You can leave in on permanently! Rather amazing as you can't do this with conventional cameras without lots of fiddling. |
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| You could also still possibly pick a new one up from smaller and country dealers. It is a dual media camera. This means it uses a standard floppy disk as well as a conventional memory stick. It is a 1.6 megapixel camera with 8 times optical zoom. You can take up to 15 seconds of MPEG movie with sound. Memory sticks come in all sizes up to 128 meg. Downloading is via a USB port. Batteries are the same ones used in Sony video cameras and are the intelligent type - tells you accurately how much time is left . |
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| We bought ours in September 2001 and it cost $1,400.00. Like everything it has come down in price as the technology develops - $1200.00. The replacement is the FD100 - a great camera BUT they have reduced the optical zoom down to 3 times and it wont be long before this is the entry model as the FD200 has just been released in the USA! This makes it useless for our work as you do need a good zoom. We are looking around for another one second hand. Interestingly the FD95 is now the entry model and has 10 times optical zoom but no memory stick - well under a $900.00 (price varies a lot as it is about to be superseded) If you are visiting the USA have a look at the FD97 as this model doesn't come to Australia and is a brilliant camera - 10X and dual plus hotshoe etc. For more information in superb detail please take a look at Steve's Digicams Internet site - the best in the business! The photo below comes from Steve's site as there is nothing to photograph in Australia. (US$900.00) You can buy through Steve's site or use it to compare prices. |
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The Future Take the time to download the comparative photos
on Steve's site and print them out. There truly is nothing like this site
anywhere. We had a long talk with Sony Australia in September 2002 on
where they are heading with regards to zoom, as they are only offering
3 times zoom on most newer models. They claim that the digital zoom has
been improved by "interpolating". Now having had years of experience
with interpolating on Atari computers so this just doesn't impress us.
If it is so good why do they bother putting any optical zoom on at all?
Food for ponderings! Gosh you become skeptical when you get old! Be aware
that Australian and USA models are slightly different product number wise
- in a word - minefield! An emerging technology is a solid state hard
drive that plugs into a USB port. No doubt this will show up soon on digital
cameras to further muddy the water. SLR type replaceable lenses are also
appearing in the $5K bracket. One of the biggest beefs of all photographers
with thousands of dollars of lenses (us!!!!) is why the heck can't they
utilise them on digital cameras? You can get more info from Sony
direct in the USA. The
FD 92 is absolutely
recommended! |
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March 30, 2006
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