After much comparison... I just ordered a Sony Mavica Camera. Basically, the fact that the camera has a clip on camcorder type battery (opposed to AA's) and a Floppy disk interface (opposed to a pain in the a*s, serial cable...) was the reason I went with the sony. I originally bought an Olympus, but returned it because it was too slow, and it killed AA's in 12 shots. <p>And Yes I will be bringing it to Waterfest on July 29th. So plan to see full event pics and car shots of all A4.org attendees! Look for Waterfest postings soon...! :) By the way, check out the NYC metro A4 page for details...

the floppy feature is big selling point in my book. Floppies are prectically free.<p>If I had the cash I'd get one. <p>But by the time I'm ready to take the plunge I'm sure that lots of memmory, and a 'fire-wire' interface will be he way to go.

I come from a background where a pic has to have at least 1280*1024 pixels. Now even with a crappy jpg compress, how many of them can you store on a floppy? Say you need to take 100 pics. How many floppies? How long will it take to download them to your hard drive?<p>Counterexample: Nikon 950. Takes a 48M flash card, 50 pictures of 1600*1200. I stick the flash card into the PCMCIA port of my laptop and about 30 seconds later the pictures are on the local disk.<p>My computers don't even have a floppy drive anymore :-)<p>- Stan<br><ul><li><a href="http://rescomp.stanford.edu/~stanj/Travel/Yellowstone/index.html">Nikon digital camera sample images</a></li></ul>

The mavica isn't exactly a pro machine. fine for snap shots.<p>He was comparing it to a camera with a serial!!! interface. Floppies are slow, but they are faster than a serial port. And they are universal. Except for high end folks (like you) who dont use them anymore.<p>Don't get me wrong, I deplore floppies. Unreliable, tiny. I'd love to see the floppy get fossilized. I have a little MO Olympus thing at home 230mb/minidisk, trouble is no one else does. And the zip drive while the closest thing to a standard isn't quite universal.<p>

I am a Mac user, and yes, I know the new g3's do not have a floppy, but for what I need the camera for, I think this is the best way to go. The image size is 1280 x whatever. Hey if I don't like it, I'll just return it... 30 days is 30 days... :)<p>Did I mention it also takes a 60 second MPEG clip.<p>FYI, this is the new top-of-the-line Mavica, the MVC-FD88, the FD 91 has been discontinued.

It's all about convenience. If I go shooting I don't want to carry a 50-pack of floppies with me. I can have a 64MB flash card for $120 with me, perfectly reliable and reusable, or a 128MB one for $380. Note, you can store about 120 1600*1280 pictures on that one, which should be enuf for a day or so :-)<p>The PCMCIA connection costs $20 or a tad less I believe. <p>It's not so much about high end, if you want high end digital you have to decide between an A4 or a camera (I actually went thru this). The 950 has a high speed serial interface if you don't have PCMCIA, oh of course only on a Mac because a PC can't handle it :-) But then, how many laptops don't have PCMCIA today?<p>If you want quality cheap, get PhotoCD scans. If you want direct digital, get something with a flash card and PCMCIA connector. Everything else you will end up regretting once you use it for more than a picture of your mother-in-law at dinner.<p>- Stan<br>

Over the past several months the two favorites in the constant stream of dialog at the rec.photo.digital newsgroup (super informative) are the Nikon Coolpix 950 and the Olympus 2000. Both are 2.1 megapixel designs with outstanding capabilities and priced about the same (street approx $800). The choice is really personal - items like packaging and other individual preference stuff. Last year's favorite (1.3 megapixel technology) is the Nikon coolpix 900 - you can find it used for about $400 - $500 depending on extras included. This is a great deal as in my mind the difference in picture quality is difficult to justify the price difference (but nonetheless, I recently sold my coolpix 900 in favor of the oly 2000 - so much for common sense logic). For more information also look at www.imaging-resource.com - you'll find all the info you need to know about digicams plaus other great links. <p>BTW, nobody who's using a megapixel digital camera in their right mind is using anything but Ni metal hydride batteries (about $4.00/ea at rat shack). Life is anywhere from 100 to 200 shots and rechargable.<p>Finally, most megapixel digicam owners have given up on the serial connector as the transfer mechanism in favor of either an external smartmedia of compact flash reader (via USB or printer port) of a PCMCIA adaptor. Plus for the smartmedia cards, there are floppy disk adaptors.<p>I strongly suggest you look further into this before you plunk down your good money. <br>

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