Sony Mavica MD7

I am gushing over my ‘new’ Sony Mavica FD7 camera that I recently got off Facebook Marketplace. It is one of the earlier digital cameras from Sony’s discontinued Mavica (Magnetic Video Camera) line that saves digital images on 3.5” 1.4 MiB 2HD floppy diskettes in DOS FAT12 format. AFAIK, the FD7 was released in 1997 with the FD5 model where the former boasts 10x optical zoom, while the later has a fixed focal length.

The camera produces .JPG images in 640x480 resolution with its 0.38 megapixel 1/4” CCD sensor. In terms of optics, it has a focal length range of 4.2 - 42mm, which is impressive for a camera of its size. The diskettes hold up to 40 .JPG images in its ‘normal’ setting and 20 images in its ‘fine’ setting. Each image takes up to 10 seconds to be recorded on the media and the process is accompanied by the sounds of the diskette’s whirring. Fun and amusing piece of technology.