I really think the Sony Mavica is the way to go. I have the 88, and wish I had waited until the 91 was available. All the Mavicas take pictures directly to 3.5" floppies in JPG format. In hi-rez mode, the 88 takes a picture that is about 250k and you can usually print photo quality 8x10's with no problem. A friend has a 91, and it is even better, as it has a much better lens. Another really big feature is that the Sony's use a rechargable camcorder battery so you don't end up going broke buying AA batteries. The 88 sells for around $900 US, and the 91 is about $100 more.
The first digital camera I got was a Casio and it was such a worthless piece of junk that I took it back and got my money back. I then bought a Minolta Dimage-V. It was a lot better camera, but it ate batteries like crazy and the images weren't all that great. It also was extremely slow downloading and took it's own special software, so you couldn't download the pictures to just any computer that you happened to be around.
Even the older Sony 81 and 83 series were superb cameras and some of the discount houses seem to have some super prices on them.
Jerry Mathel Jerry Mathel Signs Grants Pass, Oregon jmathel@grantspass.com
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[This message has been edited by jmathel (edited November 21, 1999).]
Posts: 916 | From: Grants Pass, OR USA | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
A friend in the biz dropped by the other day with his new Sony, might be the one Jerry described.
I was impressed with the pix it took, the floppy media, 400 zoom, and the fact that you could get five seconds of audio with each jpeg.
Not only that, but this model could also record mpegs, about a minute per floppy. Imagine, you never miss getting that perfect photo by a couple of seconds.
Of couse, digital is still no match for a good SLR in competent hands, but someday, who knows?
------------------ SCP spurcell99@mediaone.net Cape Cod, MA
Posts: 900 | From: Cape Cod, MA | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
I looked at several models and ended up buying the Sony Mavica, primarily because of the ease of downloading right off the floppy.Rick Williams had an article in Sign Business about a year ago in which he shows how he uses his Mavica with a yardstick in the picture for scale - no more measuring around door handles and mirror mounts. I use mine to show prospective customers exactly how their boat lettering will look (before I ever cut a piece of vinyl) It's a great tool and I think they've dropped somewhat in price - I paid $799 for the FD81.
------------------ Sonny Franks Sign Creations Lilburn, GA
"If you do what you've always done, you'll be what you've always been."
Posts: 4115 | From: Lilburn, GA USA | Registered: Feb 1999
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posted
I guess I'm in the minority so far with all these Sony's around. With all issues being equal, I went with the Nikon Cool Pix 950 simply because of the name on the optics (Nikkor Lens). I've only had it about a week and I am thrilled with it thus far. It has a direct cable connection to the computer which I find a little slow but nothing I can't live with. My recommendations would be to get something with no less than 2 mega-pixel resolution (especially if you work with commercial offset printers). They ALL eat batteries, so you'll want either rechargeable's or an AC adapter and maybe an extra memory card. I got the camera, AC adapter, and an extra 32Mb card for just under $1000 bucks. I waited and watched for nearly a year before I bought and the price came down alot in that time but I still don't know what took me so long Good Luck!
------------------ Mark Meagher MediArt Visual Greencastle, IN
Posts: 44 | From: Greencastle, IN. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
If digital printing is your gig, then the high dollar cameras are the way to go.
I use it to shoot storefronts and signs for documentationa adn presentations. I use an AGFA 307 that I bought on the Egghead auction for $121 over a year ago and it's been real good for my needs.
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"The codfish lays ten thousand eggs, the homely hen lays one the codfish never cackles to tell you what she's done And so we shun the codfish while the lowly hen we prize Which only goes to show you that it pays to advertise!" *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^ Ogden Nash
The Sign Shop Mendocino, CA.
Posts: 6712 | From: Mendocino, CA. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
I too like the Sony Mavica. I picked up the FD-91 for a hefty $1000, but It's worth the price for me. I use it extensively. For vehicles, I find it far more accurate than the digital vehicle templates (which I also have), and produce far more realistic presentations for the customer. It's also great for shooting storefronts and superimposing signage onto. The customer can see realistically how the sign will look before spending the money. The villages seem to like the images also and accept them readily with the permit apps. They are quite convenient as they use standard floppy disks (which you can get for free after rebates these days). They also save an e-mail version of the pics which are great for sending over the web as they are usually under 20k each.
------------------ Pete Kouchis Say it with SIGNS, Inc. Orland Park, IL, USA Phone: (708)460-3001 Fax: (708)460-3006
Excellence is doing a common thing in an uncommon way Booker T. Washington
Posts: 150 | From: Orland Park, IL, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
I too like the Sony Mavica. I picked up the FD-91 for a hefty $1000, but It's worth the price for me. I use it extensively. For vehicles, I find it far more accurate than the digital vehicle templates (which I also have), and produce far more realistic presentations for the customer. It's also great for shooting storefronts and superimposing signage onto. The customer can see realistically how the sign will look before spending the money. The villages seem to like the images also and accept them readily with the permit apps. They are quite convenient as they use standard floppy disks (which you can get for free after rebates these days). They also save an e-mail version of the pics which are great for sending over the web as they are usually under 20k each.
------------------ Pete Kouchis Say it with SIGNS, Inc. Orland Park, IL, USA Phone: (708)460-3001 Fax: (708)460-3006
Excellence is doing a common thing in an uncommon way Booker T. Washington
Posts: 150 | From: Orland Park, IL, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
Well I haven't bought one yet have used different cameras though and read much...also visited a site I think it was buyit.com where everybody was pleased except those who had ordered the Nikon Coolpix 950...as most had waited a long time, a couple of months for delivery. But this is no reflection on the product, I would go out and buy a Nikon 950 tomorrow, I think its the best you can buy for under $1000 I have used the Sony that the nieghbour has here and its very good easy to use as the others have said.....just feel you get alot more for not alot more money, the Nikon is in a class of its own, with speed and picture quality...and I guess you have to ask yourself what suits your needs best...all this technology changes so fast...a friend bought a Casio here a couple of years ago for about $850 whats it worth today....I think you will getter a better trade in in the future for the Nikon if you upgrade...I also think it will outlive the some of its cheaper rivals....ie not go out of date so quickly! You might think about a cheaper model and then regret it after awhile....I work abit like that with shop computers...buy the top of the range and keep it 3 years then chamge rather than getting involved in all the processor speed hype all the way....Incidentally there is a 3month wait here in Sweden for delivery of the Nikon Coolpix 950 which after reading the posts at buyit.com must mean that worldwide demand is high....that being the case....the product must be good! I love Nikon I have Nikon SLR's! so I am biased!
------------------ Henry Barker #1924 akaKaftan SignCraft AB Stockholm, Sweden. A little bit of England in a corner of Stockholm www.signcraft.se info@signcraft.se
Posts: 1552 | From: Stockholm, Sweden | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
I have been using my Sony FD88 here on my trip thru Australia for the last 2.5 months and I love it.
I chose this model because of the ease of getting the pictures onto other people's computers, and ultimately, my web site. There's no special software needed and the pics are saved as .jpg files onto floppy disks which are available worldwide in just about every city - something not true with smart card media or the other small card storage media If you haven't seen any of the pics I've posted, they are located at http://www.difsupply.com/trippin.html
I have the pics thumbnailed so just click on any images you want to see at the full size.
The first couple of links on there, I had been saving the pics to my web site using Sony's e-mail resolution. This was a very fast download but the picture size just wasn't satisfactory for most people who looked at the pics.
When I started downloading pics at the 640x480 resolution, the size was better and the download time still wasn't bad. I spent minimal time editing the pics before posting them. You can judge from them the range it captures from close facial shots to far scenery shots.
The first Kodak digital cam I tried would not allow me to save files small enough for quick internet downloading - my main purpose for getting the camera. So I returned that and got the Sony.
I chose the FD88 because it was smaller and easier to transport than the FD91 which Pete has, and because it was almost the same price as the Kodak I had just returned. The file sizes it can save pics at are more than sufficient for internet and for customer quotes and casual pictures printed on inkjet kind of printers.
I like the large LCD screen on back for composing pictures and there are many settings you can use to take shots at other than standard settings. You can overide the automatic exposure and lighten or darken the image before it's taken, or you can apply any of several special effects like sepia tone, negative, solarize, & black & white.
I also like the little icon which warns you ahead of time when the rechargeable battery is running low. And there's two options for numbering the images on the floppy. I recommend using the sequential numbering system so that you don't wind up with several floppies with the same filenames - something that happened to me on the first 6 disks until I realized it. Sending these files to my web page resulted in images overwriting other images since the filenames were the same. Once I renamed everything on the floppies, all went well and I then started saving all files sequentially.
There was one or two better models when I bought my Sony but one of them used a proprietary memory card and an unusual proprietary battery also - two items I was sure I would find difficult to replace in smaller towns, should the need arise. It is an extremely small digital camera but I didn't want to take the chance of missing out on pictures because of dead or broken batteries or storage media.
I also recommend buying an extra battery (rechargeable) so that you can immediately pop it into the camera when the first one goes dead. No missed pictures. I have needed this many times on my trip and I'm really glad I spent the $80 for an additional 3 hour battery.
posted
Empy you sure were busy with that camera in Austrailia. I always wanted to go there - but to busy living my life in Ireland at the moment. It looks like the Sony Mavicas are the digital cameras of choice for sign makers. I will probably have to trim my desire for the FD91 to a humble kodak 215 for the moment. I still have to persuade my biz partner also my wife - I love working with her I really do - the benefits of a digi camera. I think I am getting there though. Hopefully this thread on the Bull will be of help to other Letterheads - Certainly useful to me - thanks everyone
posted
Well after reading this latest round of posts about digital cameras I just HAD to go buy one. loked at the sony's and they were great but out of my price range. I liked the 3.5" floppy idea though. Since my reason for buyin was to produce proofs for customers to look at that are send via e-mail I wasn't interested in a REALLY high resolution camera. I settled on an Agfa E-photo 780c. it will take really low resolution pics and ones as high as 1024x768. In the couple of days I have been playing with it I like the 640x480 resolution best. It results in pics that are about 20K and are easy to e-mail. I also bought a Fuji floppy disk adapter that alows me to stick the "smart card" into it and then I can insert the floppy into the regular 3.5" drive and import/copy/rename. Total cost for the camera, floppy adapter was about 1/2 the cost of the cheapest Sony, about $500 Cdn (that is about $330 U.S.)
------------------ Dave Grundy shop#340 AKA "applicator" on mIRC "stickin' sticky stuff to valuable vessels and vehicles!" in Granton, Ontario, Canada 1-519-225-2634 dave.grundy@odyssey.on.ca www.odyssey.on.ca/~dave.grundy "A PROUD $ supporter of the website"
posted
We bought the Olympus 2000. The Sony's are nice, but a little too bulky for me. The Olympus isn't cheap....we paid $1000, but i think they've dropped to about $899. It's smaller and has more of the "professional camera" feel. The camera itself is enclosed in a good amount of stainless steel, similar to the Cannon Elph. It uses smart media, but you can pick up the floppy adpater for about $75, which will allow you to plug the smart media straight into your 3 1/2" drive and eliminate the cable. It cames standard with a serial cable, but they also make a USB device that sits on your desktop and accepts the smart media cards.
------------------ Bruce Evans
Posts: 910 | From: Chino, CA | Registered: Nov 1998
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The one that did it was the Olympus D340R. It comes with an 8 meg smart card, 2 CD's of software, one set of regular batteries, one set rechargable batteries with charger, serial download plug, Reeeeal long camera strap, and a book that helps you learn French and Spanish.
Sure, in about 6 months I'll get one that will also do video, audio and a USB port for 400 bucks. For now this thing is GREAT! Everyone that sees it wants one, especially after they hear the price! The only problem is finding them in stock somewhere. I finally ended up at a Walmart after waiting 2 weeks for a raincheck. Plus it was only $288.
Why get a $1000 camera because you can get floppys anywhere? Get a bunch of extra smart cards and get some cool sign stuff with the leftover money....
Just a thought.
That camera again - Olympus D340R - $288 ($299 most places)
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