Sony MVC-FD5 (1997)

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The Sony MVC-FD5 was announced together with the MVC-FD7 and they were both the first digital Mavicas. Also the first digital cameras to adopt a 3.5" floppy disk as recording media. I specifically say digital Mavica as Sony also had a line up of still video Mavicas.

 

Today many people mistake the MVC-FD5 and FD7 to be Sony's first digital cameras and therefore they also believe that the floppy disk was the first recording media ever before memory cards came to the market. Both assumptions are of course completely wrong! 

 

The MVC-FD5 was a heavy, square shaped device. This was the smallest possible design because the disk drive had to be implemented. They built the camera around the disk drive, as Sony once put it. Sony adopted the floppy disk because it was theirs and they thought it would be the cheapest form of recording media possible. At that time they were absolutely right. The cheap floppy disks could easily be removed and inserted in personal computer disk drives to process the images. No cables, no fuss.

 

Not only that but Sony also sported a powerful, versatile lithium-ion battery which could be used in most of the digital Mavicas and also in some Fuji digital camera models. It featured a large 2.5" TFT screen with brightness control, VGA resolution, auto exposure, built-in flash and a fixed focus lens. Nothing spectacular.

 

Since the digital Mavicas once dominated 40% of the digital camera market they can be considered the first mass market digicams. As a consequence most of the digital Mavicas are worthless these days, except for the CD Mavicas and the prosumer models like MVC-FD91 and MVC-FD95.