Sony Mavica FD5

image by Scott Pakulski (Image rights)

In 1997 Sony introduced the Sony Mavica MVC-FD5. This inaugurated Sony's line of Mavica cameras using 3.5" floppy disks for image storage (a format Sony itself had introduced in 1982). This was a true digital camera (indicated by the "Digital Mavica" branding), rather than encoding analog video stills, as Sony had done with its Mavica series begun in 1981. Photos are stored in JPEG format with a choice of two compression quality levels.

The FD5 is nominally a 640 x 480 pixel camera, although this is not the native resolution of its sensor (which had been adapted from video-camera use). The FD5's 4.8mm f/2.0 lens gives 47mm 35mm equivalent coverage. It does not zoom or autofocus, although there is a macro-range switch to be used for subjects 3 to 9 inches (about 8 to 25 cm) away. (Sony offered a more expensive Mavica FD7 with an autofocusing zoom lens). The rear screen is a 2.5" diagonal LCD with 61,000 dots (about 124 x 165 pixels). It uses a InfoLITHIUM NP-F530 rechargeable battery, the BC-V615 charger is included. A CR2025 button cell is also used to maintain camera settings.

Links

• Mavica FD5 manual from Sony eSupport
• Sony Mavica FD7 (and FD5) cameras profiled by Roger Wilmut
• 3D Scan of my FD5