Rating: 
Summary: Great All-Around Camera
Review: I have owned my CD400 for nearly one year. I have never been disappointed with capabilities, quality, user-friendliness, or results. This is a fantastic all-round camera. Use Sony discs, as recommended. Other media is unreliable.
Rating:
Summary: great camera
Review: I have this camera and love it. It takes great pics, has more options than I need.The only downfall is the fact that there is no zoom in video mode. I had the older Sony Mavica (that recorded to floppy's) and it did have zoom, so I didn't even think about this one not having zoom. Other than that, it's great.
Rating:
Summary: awesome pictures
Review: I just bought my new toy and I love it. I have several different types of cameras to include digital. This is the best one I have had the pleasure of using. I take photography seriously and so did sony when the designed this camera. I was incredilbly impressed with the results of the sepia photo's taken with this camera. They were right on target. I have used my camera allot in the few days that I have owned it. I am still finding more and more items and options that are great. I have read that people think it is a little big. I think they need to think back to the first digital cameras and thank sony for this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Little Camera
Review: I just love this great camera from Sony. The Mavica MVC-CD400 was a great buy for me a couple of years ago, although a 4 megapixel camera doesn't cost quite this much anymore. I spent 600 dollars for the camera at Best Buy, getting a deal because it was an open item.
The MVC-CD400 is extremely user friendly in all modes of operation (still picture, movie, or review). In my two years of taking pictures with this camera, I have only used the fully automatic still picture mode and the simple movie mode. I've yet to have a bad shot. Part of what makes shooting pictures with this camera so easy is the fact that it has the large viewing window to let the user see just about exactly what the picture will look like.
This camera has a fairly quick auto-focus feature that is highly reliable except in extreme low-light conditions, and even then it can usually compensate for the lack of light by using the built-in diamond pattern lamp used for helping the camera focus. Where this tool starts to fail is for objects more than six feet away, depending on lighting.
Although the camera has a note that it displays on power-up any time it detects a non-Sony Mavica CD installed in the storage bay, I've never had any problem using other discs. Typically I use the Memorex 210 MB CD-R's.
With these discs, I can store 95 pictures at the highest JPEG resolution, or 954 pictures at the lowest resolution. For the movie mode, the same disc will yield 8 minutes and 31 seconds at the highest resolution (which isn't that great at 320 HQX) or 100 minutes at 160 by 112 resolution, which is actually pretty crappy video. But if you want a camcorder, this is not the toy for you.
The camera can also store images in TIFF format, but be prepared to wait a while for the images to save to the disc, and to change the discs often. Only 13 images will fit on a 210 MB disc in this format. For anyone who isn't interested in professionally working with their photos, the JPEG format is fine. I've printed out many of those prints at 8x10 with remarkable detail.
Some of the extra features of this camera include the photo effects, such as black and white or negative (can't quite figure out what I might want to do with that one, but it's there nonetheless) and a red-eye reduction flash. The red-eye reduction takes a little bit more work than I would like to turn on and off (rotating the selector knob to "SET UP" and navigating a couple of options then back again), but it isn't that much of a pain and can be done in about 5 seconds. Also the user can select a "confirm before write" option, to avoid wasting space on the disc for those who have a habit of taking a picture with their thumb over the lens or something.
Another feature of the camera is to stamp the image with a date/time stamp. I don't know why anyone would really want to do this, since the time and date are also imbedded in the file (along with other data such as ISO speed, focal length, flash, and exposure time) and can be retrieved by loading the disc into a computer CD-ROM drive.
Battery life is usually quite good. I can typically use mine for an entire event (football game, wedding, etc.) without worrying about the battery, although the internal monitor might be telling me that it's low toward the end if I've been doing a lot of reviewing.
One of the drawbacks I've read in another review of this product is that sometimes using the camera to review the images stored on the disc can be painfully slow. While it is slower than using a memory stick model, it isn't that bad. Add the advantage of accessing all of the images very quickly using a PC (even before the disc is finalized by the camera) and the usefulness of this method becomes clear. Transfers from a CD are substantially faster than transfers via USB or Firewire.
I have a Canon EOS Digital Rebel now which I use most of the time and love, but I'm not getting rid of this great little Sony. Partly because my girlfriend loves it and it's kind of her camera now (she's laid claim to it), but also because it is still so useful and so good that I see no reason to.
Rating:
Summary: I OWN A NIKON 990 COOLPIX and recently used this camera...
Review: I own a Nikon 990 Coolpix. I am a professional photographer. Recently I used this camera. The
quality is excellent, the viewing window a nice size for me-a glasses wearer, the controls are
very easy to use. I rated this a four star only because the
camera takes a little time to "search" on the CD to bring up the
images to review.
I liked the way this felt in my hand, more like
a 35mm and the CD media is great.
The option of using an on camera flash unit is nice too!
If you like the idea of the CD and the flash option-this
is the camera for you!
Rating:
Summary: Sony Mavica CD 400
Review: I recently purchased my first digital camera. A big step for someone involved in taking photos for over 40 years. I purchased the Sony Mavica CD 400--what a great choice. It has the feel of an SLR, has the ability to add equipment-similar to that used with my SLR cameras, and the ability to view the pictures immediately. It also has many great features included in the initial packaging---everything to start!! I like the idea of the mini CD for picture storage, and multiple ways to download the pics taken. I will continue to use my 2 SLR cameras, but like the challenge of this new, fun digital camera.
Jackie N
New Hampshire
Rating:
Summary: Sony Mavica CD 400
Review: I recently purchased my first digital camera. A big step for someone involved in taking photos for over 40 years. I purchased the Sony Mavica CD 400--what a great choice. It has the feel of an SLR, has the ability to add equipment-similar to that used with my SLR cameras, and the ability to view the pictures immediately. It also has many great features included in the initial packaging---everything to start!! I like the idea of the mini CD for picture storage, and multiple ways to download the pics taken. I will continue to use my 2 SLR cameras, but like the challenge of this new, fun digital camera.
Jackie N
New Hampshire
Rating:
Summary: The ultimate in convenience
Review: I recently went on a whale-watching trip in Monterey. We didn't see many whales, but we saw thousands of dolphins. They would pop up out of nowhere and everyone was snapping away with their cameras trying frantically to capture the action. People using film gave up after a few minutes since the cost was prohibitive. People using memory stick cameras quickly used up their memory and spent the rest of their time reveiwing and deleting photos to make room for more. After shooting almost 100 photos at maximum resolution (JPG) using my Mavica CD400, I simply swapped out the disc and shot 100 more. The CDR's are so cheap that I didn't have to worry about taking bad shots. When all was said and done, I had about 15 excellent images out of the nearly 200 that I shot. I'm sure that I was the only one that walked off the boat with anything other than pictures of the water. Image quality is excellent.
You can shoot video with sound until the CDR runs out of room.
Many useful features that are easy to access.
Battery life is sufficient for 200+ photos
Over-priced, but incredibley convenience...worth the investment
Rating:
Summary: The ultimate in convenience
Review: I recently went on a whale-watching trip in Monterey. We didn't see many whales, but we saw thousands of dolphins. They would pop up out of nowhere and everyone was snapping away with their cameras trying frantically to capture the action. People using film gave up after a few minutes since the cost was prohibitive. People using memory stick cameras quickly used up their memory and spent the rest of their time reveiwing and deleting photos to make room for more. After shooting almost 100 photos at maximum resolution (JPG) using my Mavica CD400, I simply swapped out the disc and shot 100 more. The CDR's are so cheap that I didn't have to worry about taking bad shots. When all was said and done, I had about 15 excellent images out of the nearly 200 that I shot. I'm sure that I was the only one that walked off the boat with anything other than pictures of the water. Image quality is excellent.
You can shoot video with sound until the CDR runs out of room.
Many useful features that are easy to access.
Battery life is sufficient for 200+ photos
Over-priced, but incredibley convenience...worth the investment
Rating:
Summary: Wow! Great Resolution
Review: I simply love this camera! So easy to use, great resolution, no film, CD hold lots of high quality shots! I printed some pics from the first day and Sony Imagestation suggested enlargements 20x30 in size as the maximum! ...
|
