A fine camera that is easy to use and has a CD drive!

I wanted a digital camera to compliment my film camera. This new digital camera was going to used to build my website and take photos that did not necessarily need to be printed out on paper, either camera paper or standard white bond paper. This camera also need to have at least 3 mega pixels, USB, a rechargeable battery, a fairly large LCD display, a floppy drive (or better) and was easy to use.

What I found was the Sony MVC-CD350. This camera boasts 3.2 mega pixels (MP), USB, built-in flash, 3x optical lens, an 8cm CD-R/CD-RW drive and a 2.5 inch LCD display that is nice and bright. When I started to look at digital cameras most of them used a memory stick and for the number of photos I would take during one session may number into the hundreds. I figured I would need at least 4 memory sticks and they are expensive. A floppy drive was good but they were slow. A CD-R/CD-RW is even better!

About printing pictures out... I have sent many, many photos out and had them professionally printed on high quality photo paper and they turned out very well. In fact I have had enlargements done and they also look great. My next purchase will be a photo printer.

A single 8cm CD will hold about 81 JPEG (You can make TIFF files) photos in 3.2 MP mode and even more in lower resolution modes. Using a CD-RW allowed me to use the discs over and over again and for a 3 pack they run about $19.00. I hardly ever use CD-R’s as you can not erase a bad shot. I copy the files over to my desktop PC and then burn CD-R’s of the final pictures I want to keep.

I found battery life to be very good and I get about 2 hours of continuous use. The display also tells you how much battery is left, in minutes, on the display. Sony uses a lithium-ion smart battery for this camera. The included charger will also run your camera from household current but will not charge the battery while the camera is on. Digital cameras are known for eating batteries for breakfast and this will help to hold down the cost of operating the camera. You can change the battery out in a few seconds if need be.

The lens is a 3x lens and it will give you pretty good flexibility and still keep the camera to a small size (Be sure to buy a filter to protect the lens! You can get this from Sony or any camera shop.). If you drop the resolution down below you start to use the digital zoom and it will go to about 6x zoom. A nice feature is an indicator on the display when you start going into the digital zoom.

The auto focus works very well but there is no way to do a quick manual focus. There is manual focus but you have to go through the menus and the presets are too cumbersome to use. A very minor bother. You can also do close-up shots using the macro feature. I’ve used it and you can get to about one inch away. Just be sure to hold the camera steady as the auto-focus tends to hunt around if you are a little shaky.

The built-in flash has red-eye reduction, so people in your scene don’t have glowing red eyes. This feature can be turned on and off using a menu feature. You can also vary the flash level from Low/Normal/High. There are a few other features for the flash but I have yet to use them such as slow-sync.

The controls... As you hold the camera in your right hand the top knob controls the camera with various features such as set up playback and the movie clip mode. Near your thumb is the zoom control and on the top near the front of the camera the shutter release. The grip is comfortable to hold and can be easily held by the largest hands to a child’s hand. I know, as my daughter has used the camera many times and she is nine. On the back of the camera is the LCD display/viewfinder, cursor controls, a menu, display on/off, and resolution/trash can buttons.

Short video clips can be made and there are two modes. The first is what Sony calls the e-mail mode. This is a 160 pixel video and takes up less space for an e-mail attachment. The second is a higher resolution mode at 640 pixels and both modes produce MPEG files. You can e-mail both, but… if someone is using a dial-up connect that 640 mode MPEG may be several megabytes in size and that could take a while to download!

About the only part of the manual I read when I first got the camera was the section on how to install the battery and how to charge it. I did not want to mess up and have a broken camera. Everything else is very intuitive and the features laid out in a logical manner. The manual is well written and very clear. You can tell it was written by someone here in the US and does not contain those odd “translated phrases” such as “kindly remove the sticker.”

My MVC-CD350 came with a CD-RW, CD-R, battery and charger, USB cable, some software to download images from the camera to your PC, video cable to connect to a TV’s video in, shoulder carry strap and lens cover.

There are other features to this camera that I have not covered such as the built in timer, voice recorder, burst mode, etc.

I’m rather pleased with this camera and would recommend it. My only complaint is that the camera is somewhat pricey. But you’ll save that on memory cards.