Sony MVCCD300 3MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom

I have used several digital cameras and the Sony MVC-CD300 is the best by far. Being able to burn a rewritable CD at a cost of less than $5 per CD with 150MB is a BIG advantage over memory card style cameras (a 128MB card can run a couple hundred dollars). The electronic storage problem that I faced with memory cards no longer applies (I travel a lot and always have my camera in my hand so you can imagine the number of pictures taken).

I have been able to store close to 100 pictures at the highest resolution on one CD making it very easy to file, catalog and find my pictures. I have not had the problem that the previous reviewer did in being able to delete a picture and reuse the space. He must be using regular CDs (certainly an option) rather than the rewriteable ones.

It was very easy to initially set up and use and has multiple ways to get the pictures to my PC. I usually use the USB hook-up and even use the camera as a rewriteable CD for pictures other folks send me. When I am feeling lazy, I just plop the CD in my DVD drive which also works great.

With 3.3 megapixels, the picture clarity couldn't be better. I have printed out 8 x 10s that look like they were taken by an expensive 35mm camera. The number of options for picture sizing is also enough to satisfy any "normal" requirement.

If I had to point out one issue with the camera, it is size. While certainly not the largest camera on the market, it is a bit bulkier than I would prefer (I like sticking a camera in my pocket and I need to use a fanny pack to carry this one around).

All in all, if you are looking for a camera that can take 35mm quality pictures and still stay digital, I would highly recommend this Sony.

My wife gave me my MVC-CD300 for my birthday. It arrived just in time for our 4th of July family reunion. I took 450 pictures over 5 days and had only one that was not a keeper (credit camera, not photographer). The camera allows you to not only review your shots, but to zoom up to 5X to really check out the details of the photos you've taken. Each evening we would hook the camera up to the TV with the RCA cable (included) and set the camera on "Slide Show". It was so much better than I imagined, beautiful high-resolution photographs of the day automatically displayed for everyone to enjoy (and critique). When the week was over I downloaded slide show software from CyPics and burned a CD for everyone to have all 450 pictures at a cost of less than a dollar per CD. Plus, they can insert the pictures into Word for cropping and printing with almost no effort at all. I have yet to use the USB cable since it is no problem to just use my pc's CD drive. I had planned to archive my photos on the camera's small CD, but it is so easy to copy them to the hard drive and burn a larger CD with about 800 photographs that I have gone to using the rewriteable CDs in the camera. I use the 2nd highest resolution on the MVC-CD300 and get about 150 shots per CD and they give excellent 8x10 prints. The cost per shot (including archiving) is almost nothing, so you feel totally free to snap away. You couldn't ask for a better combination of features.

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Tired of just taking 20 photos and then having to go home and tranfer th pictures to you computer. Well the sun has finally risen over the horizon of digital cameras. This camera uses an 88 cent 8cm mini cd for its film. You get to take 99 pictures per disc at its highest resolution in the least compressed jpg mode. Each picture is around 1.2 megabytes in fine compression max resolution. You can even take uncompressed photos if you want maximum clarity at print sizes over 8x10 with only 9 megabytes used up per picture. Try that with a dimage 7!!!

The ability to make 15 second 320x240 mpeg 1 movies is cute. the other format for moving pictures is a multi image gif file. sony calls it clip mode. point your web browser at it to see the frames fly by, just like all those moving ads do it

After you buy this camera you should also get a S70 adapter, 52mm lens protector (UV filiter), and a 52mm lens cover (the one that comes with the camera is not 52mm. A .8 netural denisty would also come in handy for those wide apeture blured background shots in the daytime. Since this camera has such a fantastic manual white balance forget about buying the FL-D and the rest of the light correcting filters. just put in one touch mode, point it at your scene and volia the colors look ok.

After using it for a few short vacations i discovered i prefered cd-r discs. With a cd-rw you can only reclaim space on the disc if you erase the last photo taken. otherwise its no different then a cd-r unless you want to wipe the whole thing clean with a format. the only benifit of cd-rw is with rotate which actually rewrites over the existing image rather than burning another.

The key to night shots is to put it in manual mode a=3.5 s=30 is a good starting point. Its cumbersome to keep haveing to switch back to setup mode to change the preset scene mode to a different one. The cameras brain does not automaticly use the flash when you need a fill light. you will have to waste the first photo to notice you subject is a black siluette, and force the flash for your next shot.

The mini cd's are becoming very popular as there are a ton of tiny MP3-CD players commig out which use em

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First of all, let me say I'm not a professional or even semi-pro photographer. I wouldn't know an f-stop if it landed on me. That being said, I love this camera. It's extremely easy to use. I bought mine in Tokyo, so the manuals were of course in Japanese (which I don't read or speak) but I still figured out the camera with no problems. If you can figure out something without a manual you can read, then the thing wasn't very complicated. The pictures are fantastic, in my opinion. The cd-rw works very well. You have to initialize the disc, then finalize it to be read in your computer's cd-rom. With cd-rw discs you can then unfinalize them in the camera to store more pictures on the disc. Each of these procedures take a couple of minutes, and you have to sit the camera on a flat surface and not move it during that time. If you use plain cd-r discs, you can't unfinalize them. I've read that some cd-rom drives have difficulty reading from cd-rw discs, but mine had no problem. If you have an older cd-rom, you might have to use cd-r discs instead of cd-rw. But since you can get them for less than a dollar and store 150+ images, you're still getting a bargain compared to Memory Stick or Smartmedia prices.

The camera comes with one cd-rw and one cd-r disc, but will work with 80mm discs from other companies. You do get a nag-screen on the LCD saying "Mavica discs recommended" if you use non-sony media, but I figure that's okay with me, considering how much cheaper non-Sony discs are. P>There is very little lag time between pics, much less than I expected. 2 seconds or so, usually less. This is my first digital camera so I don't know if that's a long time compared to other cameras, but I was surprised, considering the image is being burned to a disc. However, I've read that if you use the 'uncompressed TIFF' option, it takes 30+ seconds to write the 10Mb image to the disc. The cd-rw speed is 4x.

One cool thing is that you can zoom in up to 5x in images that are stored in the camera, move around within the image to see the part you want, and crop the pic if you want to while it's still in the camera, no computer needed. You can hook up the AV cable to see this on your TV as you're doing it.

The battery recharges inside the camera there is no external battery charger. So if you buy an extra battery, like I did, you can't charge it while you're using the camera. That's the only complaint I have, and it isn't much of a complaint.

For a long time serious photo hobbyists have turned up their noses at the Mavica line, but I think this should change because of this camera. 3.3 megapixels makes for excellent pictures, and the flexibility allows for a lot of control over the more advanced features. I can't recommend this camera highly enough.

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After owning the camera for a couple of weeks, I have to make a small addition. There is no optical viewfinder, which is a problem under dim lighting conditions. For nighttime shots or macro work where vibration is more of a problem, you would want to use a remote control, and the only remote control available is the one built into Sony tripods. You can get around the vibration problem by using the timer, but it would still be nice to have a wired remote control. Those are my only nags thus far. I would still buy the camera without hesitation.

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... I think the 300 is almost perfect. However there a couple things that could have been done better so I'm focusing on the negatives here.

Things that won't be fixed:

... I dislike the write time for each picture. The run time for a battery is not long enough. At best you'll get about an 1 1/2 hours. Part of the problem is that the lcd is the only way to view. It has a switch to shut off the backlight, but even on the sunniest days, you can barely see your subject with the light off.

Interchangeable lens would have been nice. You can get some attachments, but truly interchangeable lens would be better.

There are some irritating aspects as well. I find that the natural grip causes me to touch the lcd and leave thumb prints on it all the time. I often find that I've mysteriously set the macro button. I've taken a few pictures in macro mode without realizing it. The most irratating is that Sony harasses you for not buying their expensive media (about 6-8 times more costly than the good ones I buy elsewhere). Everytime you turn on the camera you get the message "Sony recommends Mavica CDs only" or some such thing.

Things Sony could fix:

My biggest complaint is that it doesn't come with a cover for the LCD. I primarily bought the camera to carry around on bike trips and I keep it in my front handlebar bag. The lcd is already pretty bady scratched from bouncing around inside the bag.

The battery charger that comes with it is pretty inconvenient. You need to open a little door to plug in the cord. That little plastic door isn't too sturdy. A better idea would have been to give you a charger like the cheaper one they sell that you could also plug into the camera. I bought the charger and a second battery and am a lot happier. The new charger is also more portable.

Like I said up front, I'm pleased with the camera. I plan on taking it on a cross country bike ride and anticipate a small stack of CDs will last me. I'd recommend the MVCD300 to anyone who won't find the above quirks too bothersome.