Sony Mavica MVC CD250

This is the Sony Mavica MVC-CD 250. 2.0 mega-pixel Digital Camera. I purchased this fine camera on eBay for around $250.00 and I got about 25 8cm CD-R discs with it and 2 CD-RW's. I will talk later about advantages of what style of disk to use (CD-R or CD-RW). For what I paid and what I got I just got lucky and got a really good deal. To find this camera new your looking at around $300-$450 with your basic setup. There are a lot of features that I am going to point out that are good. You can choose from about 8 different picture sizes and qualities which is more than enough for the avid photographer. The most basic image will give you about a 61k-75k image which is a good size and pretty basic. You can do a B&W image which is nice for those want the pictures to look older, and some people just like B&W images. I have found that they are pretty cool. The features on this camera are just as easy to operate as the ones on the Sony Mavica MVC-FD88. The features are easy to access and you don't have to go to a special menu to change your quality setting, you just access it from the picture mode. There a few special features that I like and one of them is the 3 picture burst for like making .gif images. This camera can also take .tiff images. You can also record voice with a picture and take pictures directly for e-mail purpose. You have the ability to adjust your white balance. Some nice features on this camera that others don't have is AF Illuminator for low-no light situations. You know how most digital cameras can't focus in a low light situation and you get a really fuzzy picture because the camera couldn't focus, well this camera eliminates this problem with a Auto Focus Illuminator. It is a small red light that comes on and allows the camera to focus. Once the camera has focused the flash pops up and the AF Illuminator shuts off. You get your picture that is in focus and you took it in the complete darkness. Moving on. A feature that I like especially for time sensitive pictures is the Time/Date stamp on each picture. You can turn it on and off. Camera has red eye reduction which is switch able on and off. Has Macro setting. Has a very long battery life I have seen a minute time of 200+ minutes on a charged battery. Camera has auto off to save battery. Multi Spot Auto Focus or Just center Focus.

Sorry folks for this review being so long but I want you to know what you are getting is all. I sure hope my review of this helps. I myself. I love this camera.

Now I will talk about the Movie feature on this which is what really turned me on to this camera. You can choose from 3 different movie types, and they are .mpeg, clip motion, and Multi burst. The multi burst is again like making a .gif image but it takes about 8 pictures very, very fast. More features yet you can set the camera to show you the preview of the picture you just took and it will ask you if you want to write that picture. That feature can be turned on an off. (Please note that even if the camera says recording it isn't permanent until you finalize the cd. I will talk about that later).

Now the video part, the best part. Yes it is true you can take 90 minutes of video with sound but that 90 minutes is a low quality. There are 3 quality settings for video. The one that is all around good is the middle setting which will allow 23minutes and 37 seconds of video with sound. It is a pretty good quality with sound. It is the equivalent of the Sony Mavica MVC-FD88 Highest Quality only you can take more than 15 seconds. Now the highest quality which is a super high quality you can take only 5 minutes of video with sound on your 156mb 8cm disc. Your looking on the largest quality setting at a very large file size once on the computer and someone has to download it they might want DSL because it could take hours to download with dial up. You good all around setting for video is the middle setting.

Now for the disc preference. You have 2 different types of storage media, you have CD-R and CD-RW. The CD-R you can write and then rewrite to it BUT if you say for example put 5mb of files on the CD-R and then Finalize the CD (you MUST finalize the CD-R and CD-RW in order to use them in a computer drive), put it in your computer, download the pictures and put the disc back in the camera, remember this is CD-R, you CAN Unfinalize the CD-R BUT you do lose that 5mb that you previously put on it. So eventually you will have to throw the disc away. The CD-RW is different. For Example you can put 75 mb of pictures on the CD-RW and then Finalize the CD. Put it in your computer, take all the pictures off and then put it back in your camera. Unfinalize the CD-RW and Format the CD-RW and you still have ALL of your 156 mb of space back. My suggestion is to use the CD-RW's even though they may cost a bit more they last a whole lot longer. Some CD-ROMs can't use the 8cm disc so when you buy the camera there is suppose to be an adapter to make it a full size disc. I hope this has answered your questions you may have on this model of Sony. I myself love the camera.