In the latest edition of Digital Throwback, Mashable takes a look at a camera that never got as much attention as it should have when it was first released, way back in 1999. The Sony Mavica MVC-FD73 was a pioneering digital camera that used…wait for it…a 3.5” floppy disk as its “memory card.” Remember those colorful prehistoric plastic disks that often died on us?
With a 4.2mm–42mm (10x) optical zoom, maximum image resolution of 640 x 480 pixels (0.3 megapixel), and a tiny 2.5” rear LCD screen, this was a lean mean image machine.
Sony Mavica
The camera also had a tiny flash, exposure compensation option, and a few image effects to boot. To transfer images you of course needed a floppy drive. My, we’ve come a long way.
Did you ever use a Sony Mavica?
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Yes I used a Sony Mavica FD71 until the battery died about 10 years ago. It was a real workhorse in my sign business. There was virtually no lens distortion and I could draw a logo or decal directly on the photo in Corel.
Never got round to replacing the battery after my replacement workstation computer came without a floppy disc reader.
The camera is still in pristine condition sans battery. Don’t know if the replacement batteries is still available.
I would like to fire it up again because I believe floppy disc readers is available that plugs into a USB port.
I am not short of floppy discs that have been stored safely away from magnetic fields. Some have my original photos still stored.
I would probably need to load the included CD on my computer to read and convert the MVC files to download the resulting Jpegs.
YES! I loved my Sony Mavica! I had the one that wrote to mini CDs… and I still have it, although I don’t use it anymore. And I still use photos from that camera… some of my all-time favs, still printing and sharing!