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Christopher Wright Reviews: Sony Mavica MVC-FD71 |
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More features Another feature of the Mavica that evokes a mixed reaction in me, is its 4.2 - 42mm 10X optical zoom. The equivalent of 40 to 400mm, the zoom has a very good range, but I wish it were wider at the bottom end. I know its a common complaint with digital cameras, but there were a number of occasions when the equivalent of a 24, or even a 28mm, would have been useful. |
| The autofocus is fast and positive and seemed accurate right through
the range. The tele-wide switch, which moves sideways, is right under the thumb abd
once used to it I never had to think about changing the framing - it was automatic.
The Mavica has a manual focus facility that works quite well, but I found that it
was seldom needed. The instruction manual recommends switching to manual in low light
situations, but in practice I found that the auto almost always worked well. Minimum
focus distance is half a metre. It is curious that the camera also features a five-program AE mode. Curious in that although the instruction manual is coy about it, I assume that the Mavica always operates as a Program AE camera. In the event the five modes are * Soft Portrait mode, * Sports lesson mode, * Beach & Ski mode, * Sunset & Moon mode, * Landscape mode, * Panfocus mode ... I make that six, but never mind. To be honest I never used any of them as the standard setting worked fine even at night. The normal recording mode of the Mavica is JPEG but it also has the facility to record as an uncompressed BMP file. In this mode a 900KB file is written to the disk, along with a compressed 54KB JPG file of the same image. Opening and comparing them side by side there is no doubt that the BMP file is streets ahead in terms of sharpness and scarcity of artefacts and also seems to have the slight edge in terms of contrast as well. It certainly looks better when printed out - even on a bubble jet printer. |
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