SD Cards are ubiquitous these days - but they weren't in 2001. In fact, the format wars for flash storage mediums were still underway, with Sony's Memorystick, Fujifilm's XD cards, the SD card (a collaboration between Toshiba, SanDisk, and Panasonic that, as we know, eventually won out), the CF card, and others.
Anyone wanting to use a device that required one of these needed both the card format, as well as a card reader for said format for one's computer. That could add quite a bit of cost to using such a device.
So what did you do if you were Sony and you wanted to produce a digital camera for the masses without proprietary memory card formats as a barrier to entry?
You built a camera that took a media format that was cheap, everywhere, and that everyone's computers could read - the floppy disk!
Enter the Mavica: Sony's 'inexpensive' digital camera line. My model, the MVC-FD75, sold in 2001 for $500 USD, the equivalent of $860 today (2023). It took 0.3MP photos (at 640x480, a respectable full-screen resolution at the time), had a 10x optical zoom lens, and a "quick access" floppy drive that accepted the standard IBM formatted 1.44MB disks that - by this time - were extremely cheap and probably something everyone had more than they knew what to do with.
Based on the image filesize I've gotten (around 35KB), the floppy disk would have been able to store around 35 photos - surprisingly comparable to the reigning photography monarch of the last decade, the 35mm film roll.
So how does it hold up today?
Well, from a usability standpoint, sure, it's better than hand-drawing sketches of what you saw (unless you're a decent artist). Almost any other newer digital camera would be better though. I used a little Canon point-and-shoot from 2012 to capture images in its lowest resolution setting (also 640x480) and the quality of those photos was noticeably better despite being the same resolution.
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| The
Mavica (left) has a fuzzier and more noisy image. The Canon ELPH300HS
has a more detailed image with more accurate colors (right). |
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| Surprisingly, at this lower light setting, the images are almost indistinguishable at 100% zoom. (Mavica to left, Canon to right.) |
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| With harsher lighting, the noise and lack of contrast let the Mavica down. (Mavica on left, Canon on right.) |
However - the thing (I feel) sets this camera back is not its sensor or lens, but rather the limitations of the processed images it produces. Looking at a photo at 100% (or better, 50%) scale, it could pass as a photo from a much newer, much nicer camera. The lens produces good background blur for closer subjects, seems sharp (as far as I can tell), and in good lighting, the colors and range look nice.
The best analogy for how I feel about the photos this camera takes is this: you've found a nice photo on the web that you can tell was taken with a good camera, but you only found a really compressed, low-res version of the photo. You know that somewhere out there, there's a higher quality photo - but the one you have only looks good at 50% scale.
Except, with the Mavica, there is no better photo. 640x480 with JPEG compression is the best you get. You can get bitmaps out of it, but despite taking up 10x more space, the quality gain is barely noticeable. I couldn't see anyone using it for serious photography except in an experimental or nostalgic sense.
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| At
~700% zoom, you can see some JPEG artifacts that aren't present in the
BMP image. Then again, it's difficult to say at this resolution how much
of that is texture from the oil painting. |
Clearly, I didn't get it for serious photography. I got it because I was curious - and because it was half-off at my local thrift store ($6!). And I'm glad I did. Once I figured out how to charge the (still produced!!! and still working!!!) infolithium battery pack and got it turned on, I couldn't stop grinning.
From the sounds it made, to the smooth, quiet action of the 10x zoom lens, how good the live feed looked on the (admittedly low resolution, small screen), the little animation it makes when writing an image to the floppy disk, the classic floppy drive sounds, and the distinctively 90's consumer electronics build, this thing is an absolute joy to use.
And for something that was only $6, this much enjoyment is all the return on my investment that I need.
More photos from the Mavica:
Photos of the Mavica, incidentally taken with my Canon still set to 640x480.
