Sony MVCCD250 2MP CD Mavica Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom

I am a professional radiographer and photographer (25 years now) and I used both the CD400, CD300, as

well as a Nikon Coolpix for this year's field research season x-raying mummies in Peru. This means the cameras

were pushed hard.....blowing sand, huge contrast ranges, high resolution radiographs needed, fast manual

control of radical light conditions, etc.....essentially most of the tough conditions and imaging requirements you

can imagine. Here's what I found:

The Sony Mavica CD300 beat them all. It's not the most expensive or the best resolution but we all thought it

did the best job.

Mavica CD400: best resolution but extremely slow recording time made it impossible to work with most of the

time....the CD300 often got 3-4 shots while the 400 was recording one.

Mavica CD300: not the best resolution, but now that I've done some prints for publication from it's highest res

setting I will not be buying any more 400s....just not a significant enough difference, plus it's not as heavy or

bulky.

Nikon Coolpix: not in the running by comparison with the Sonys....although it is more lightweight....we are

buying mini CDs for 33 cents each in bulk... and getting 140-180 high res images per CD.....they are so easy to

format, initialize, and copy on any CD burner that I can't believe we even considered using memory stiks, or

USB downloads.

The best features are common to both the Sony Mavica CD300 and 400 series though.....manual control of the

images, excellent close up abilities, decent wide angle (which can be enhanced with add-on lenses if necessary),

and both rapid video and automatic functions with night focusing for flash, etc., etc.

Finally! There is a great digital camera.

This is one of my more favorite cameras. I personally have the MVC-CD300 however this camera has nothing to laugh about.

It's 2MP resolution makes it ideal for both printing on glossy of matte finishings, granted it does have a little graininess here and there however most digital cameras do until it reaches anything past 4MP. It is also ideal for internet usage, the pictures it saves are not to big for a dial-up user to download if you send them an e-mail with picture attachments taken by this camera.

It's 3x optical zoom lens is standerd for most digital cameras and I was never fond of digital zoom since it really is not a zoom anyway.

Naturely I love the cd option the best. Even though the cd size is half of that of a regular cd, it will still fit in ANY computer cd tray so you don't have to worry about compatibility. The only compatibility you have to worry about is if your computer can support both video and jpeg files alike.

The cds are very cost effective. A 156mb cd can cost anywhere between [amt] and [amt]. This may seem a lot for a cd however when you consider the fact that a compact flash, smart media or SD card with a 128mb card can cost between [amt] and [amt], it really seems like a deal, and the CD-RWs naturaly are reusable.

It also has the movie taking feature which I love entirely. My Dad recorded my entire High School graduation ceremony with one cd. Granted the resolution was not top notch but when you consider the fact that you can record over an hour of footage non-stop and potentialy burn it onto a DVD (depending on what burner you have) the possibilities with this camera are endless.

Buy Sony MVCCD250 2MP CD Mavica Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom Now

This is my first digital camera and I am glad I waited. I am just an average guy who had always used a basic 35mm for vacation & family photos and, while I had considered digital cameras for quite some time I was not quite convinced and was somewhat confused by the variety of cameras and storage media. This camera changed my mind and convinced me that "digital" is the way to go.

While the Sony CD-250 is not the top of the line in terms of ghee-whiz features, for a non-technical person I have found it to be just superb. The CD's (CD-R & CD-RW) are durable and have more than ample storage, the camera is easy to use, it produces great shots, has a solid feel (same size as a typical 35mm camera) and has a good battery life. Downloading and attaching photos to e-mail or posting to the Sony photo site is quite easy. In short, I am very pleased.

In my opinion, for the casual camera user who has been considering a digital camera, take a look at the the Sony CD series of cameras I think you will be pleased.

Read Best Reviews of Sony MVCCD250 2MP CD Mavica Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom Here

I bought this camera for the convenience and portability of the writable CD, but the laser was thrown off just 3 months after I bought the camera. Apparently, this camera has a high failure rate (1 in 10) because of the delicacies of the CD writable construction.

One other negative aspect of the CD media is that writing to the CD is slower than to other memory devices and reading the CD (when previewing images in the camera) is also slow.

I think there's more value in the Canon G2 most of the same features, but with 4.0 Megapixels and a more solid construction. That's what I traded in my Sony MVC-CD250 for...

Want Sony MVCCD250 2MP CD Mavica Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom Discount?

The main advantage of this camera is its memory format: a mini-CD you can just put into your computer's CD-ROM player for easy downloading of pics onto your PC, plus each [$$} disk can hold a lot more pics than most overpriced Memory Stick.

Disadvantages: bulky (same size and weight as normal SLR camera), no viewfinder, the functions are not easy to adjust (Pentax and Canon still win the easy-to-use contest, and the lens is a mediocre no-name with the Sony label stamped on it.

My recommendation is pay a little more for the same Sony disk-style digital cameras that come with the German lenses (I think Carl Zeiss or something like that) if you don't mind the bulk and like the disk format, otherwise Panasonic has a good digital camera for about the same price with a Leica lens and one extra megapixel (3.0 total) resolution.