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My late husband loved digital photography. When he passed away, I looked at this Sony camera sitting on the shelf and decided I was going to learn to use it. I'm not a technical person so I can't go into all the technicalities of the cells, apertures, etc. that so many other people speak about.

But what I CAN tell you is that I started an online website, Atlanta Vintage Jewelry dot com, and all the pictures there (over 1400 so far) have been taken with this camera. I found it relatively easy to learn (with the help of the instruction book). It has great features, close-up capabilities, various white balances, spot metering, timer, and such that I use regularly.

My graphics program is Photoshop. After taking the pics, the camera simply connects to my PC, and after reading the CD source in the camera I can import them right into the program for editing. It also has a threaded lens so it accepts filters and additional lenses, if needed.

I love this camera. My husband also had some other camera brands (i.e. Olympus) and after working with them, I chose this Sony as my favorite. Bulky? A little. But it's immaterial.

The only negative I can say is that you have to keep the camera steady once you've snapped the picture until the red light goes out (writing info to the interior disc). Otherwise the data may not show up. To virtually eliminate this problem, I now use a tabletop tripod and the camera's timer.

I've taken self portraits successfully. It takes great distance shots. I've only changed the little CD once, and they're relatively inexpensive compared to memory sticks. The camera has a built in flash but also a hot shoe to accept bounce flashes or whatever.

I like it and I think you will, too.

I prefer SONY MAVICAS because they so easily accommodate the 3 inch disk CD-R/CD-RW which hold 156MB - 190MB per disc giving me the flexibility of unlimited memory storage and costing 0.50 cents per disc as opposed to the overtly pricey habit of replenishing COMPACT FLASH memory cards (or precious memory-sticks as SONY calls them). More importantly, I don't have to lug around my laptop on holiday excursions... !
I have a Sony MVCCD500 CD Mavica 5MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom .
Instead of the laptop, I'd rather carry along as well my devoted 35mm Canon film SLR longtime companion (for old times' sake) along with my 8-month old Mavica. Any thoughts to share?!

Can't wait for the new 6MP SONY MAVICA dual video/still to come out.

I've had this camera for over a year now, have used it under varing conditions (cold, rain, dust) and it works perfectly. One of the best features of this camera is that you can save the small CDs in your library, and never have to worry about your computer crashing and losing all your valuable photos! I buy the read-only CDs (which are cheaper) and don't delete any photographs that I take.

Granted, the camera is a bit heavier than the little ones that seem to be so popular, but not as heavy as you'd think.

I use the camera to take photographs for various web sites that I host, and the quality of the photographs are amazingly good. Another plus is that no matter where you travel with it, if you can find a computer with a CD-ROM drive you can see the photographs. No need to travel with your camera's software and plugs... This way I can leave an electronic version of photographs with those I'm visiting, and still take them home.

Simply a five star camera. I wouldn't trade it in for any other type.

I have owned this camera for about 6 months now and I am glad I bought it.
Pros: 1) Brand name Carl Zeiss lens, known for its excellent quality. The colors are true and sharp in pictures from broad daylight through flash and still captures very good details under low light conditions without flash. Closeup photography is outstanding and I have taken some excellent pictures from a distance of about 10 cms.
2) Very easy menu selections - One other reviewer also mentioned this as a point that many users tend to overlook and I second his opinion. You don't have to dig 2-3 levels deep to change camera setting, especially if you are using manual setup.
3) Big fat LCD screen allows easy viewing.
4) Though its not meant to operate as a camcorder, it does make an excellent movie. The sound capture is very sensitive and the in-built speaker is very good.
5) Easy transfer to you computer thought USB cable (provided). I use Win XP and it is a breeze for me to transfer the pictures from camera to the computer using XP's camera wizard. Can also be connected directly for viewing on a TV screen.
6) For permanent storage, you can also finalize the CD and just pop it in the computer whenever you want to view. Mini CDs are dirt cheap (compare them to flash media of equivalent capacity). SONY recommends using MAVICA CDs (of course), which are a little costly. I have been using Maxell mini CDRs without hitch (available at Wal-Mart for about $6.00 for a 10 pk). Camera keeps giving annoying reminder to use mavica CDs, just ignore it.
7) Hot shoe pod to attach external flash for enthusiasts, though the built-in flash has a very good range (about 14 feet under auto exposure conditions).
8) Like the weight and feel of it.
9) Very Good battery life between charges.

Cons:
1) 3x zoom is a minor disappointment especially as the digital zoom is worthless.
2) There is no temporary storage for picture, where one can review a picture before deciding to burn it on the CD. The camera does have option to "delete" which is a misnomer. All the camera does is not show the file if you choose delete, even though the picture will be on your CD. If its a CDR, you are stuck with it as soon as you have clicked the picture, at least you can reformat if using a CDRW.
3) The bundled software from SONY is C-R-A-P. As I mentioned before, I use WinXP (home and professional) camera wizard to transfer the pictures by USB. (Cons # 1-3 are my primary reasons for giving this camera 4 stars).
4) The lag time between two pictures can be as great as 6-10 seconds, especially as the CD gets full, so it may not be the best for taking a series of single pictures rapidly. You can however take upto 16 exposures at a time in multiburst mode (and I am guessing here, the lag time might be greater before you can take another multiple series with a single click).
5) The laser lens for burning the CDs might be sensitive if the camera experiences more than the usual rough and tumble. I have taken this camera on many vacations, through all sorts of weather without any trouble, still I take care not to bang it against something hard. (Rock climbers, members of the press - this may not be the camera for you to take along on one of your excursions).

I am a professional radiographer and photographer (25 years now) and I used both the Sony CD500, CD400, CD350, CD300, as well as a Nikon Coolpix for field research x-raying mummies in Peru. This means the cameras were pushed hard.....blowing sand, huge contrast ranges, high resolution radiographs needed, fast manual control of radical light conditions, etc.....essentially most of the tough conditions and imaging requirements you can imagine. Here's what I found:

The Sony Mavica CD500 & 300 beat them all. It's not the most expensive or the best resolution but we all thought it did the best job.

Mavica CD500: best of all....resolution, reasonable recording time, great image control for exposure, close-ups, better controls, pretty much everything

Mavica CD400: best resolution but extremely slow recording time made it impossible to work with most of the time....the CD300 often got 3-4 shots while the 400 was recording one.

Mavica CD350: not enough manual control for us, but usually got great images on automatic....some problems with exposure range for close-ups though

Mavica CD300: not the best resolution, but now that I've done some prints for publication from it's highest res setting I will not be buying any more 400s....just not a significant enough difference,
plus it's not as heavy or bulky.

Nikon Coolpix: not in the running by comparison with the Sonys....although it is more lightweight....we are buying mini CDs for 33 cents each in bulk... and getting 140-180 high res
images per CD.....they are so easy to format, initialize, and copy on any CD burner that I can't believe we even considered using memory stiks, or USB downloads.

The best features are common to both the Sony Mavica CD300 and 400 series though.....manual control of the images, excellent close up abilities, decent wide angle (which can be enhanced with add-on lenses if necessary), and both rapid video and automatic functions with night focusing for flash, etc., etc.

Finally! There is a great digital camera!

I love taking photographs, and in years past I have spent a great deal of money on film and processing. My theory has always been that if you take a lot of photos of something, one of them is bound to be good. This has meant, however, that a lot of the photographs I've taken have been tossed in the trash later.

I began getting into digital photography after purchasing a new computer with photo editing software and a processor capable of handling and storing my abundance of photographs. I tried several basic cameras before a coworker showed me her older-model Mavica, and I was sold. The large LCD screen, the features, the high-quality photographs (with setting options as high as 5 megapixels, although I generally stick with 3 mp), and the added bonus of the CD-R/CD-RW, which eliminated the need to have multiple memory cards on hand or a laptop nearby. Toss a few disks into your bag, and you can take several hundred photographs for a fraction of the cost of a second memory stick.

I bought the CD500 in August 2003 after the birth of my first child. Although I wasn't sure I would use all of the features, particularly the MPEG video recording feature, I have found uses for nearly everything. I was disappointed to find that the camera did not have a black & white photography option as earlier models did, although there is a sepia tone feature; photos taken in sepia tone can be easily converted to B&W in any editing program and they translate quite well.

As I mentioned earlier, I keep my photographs set at 3 megapixels. I find that this is high enough quality to produce even poster-size prints at sites like [...] yet still small enough to allow a great deal of space on the CDs. As for MPEG recording, I have used both 160 and 640 settings, and both are very good. The 160 is best for video you plan to email; I have sent mini videos of my son to my parents that they have treasured. The 640 is high-quality video capable of transfer to DVD or VHS if you have the necessary computer equipment. The sound and picture quality is excellent.

The downsides of this camera are fourfold. First, it is a high-end camera and thus retails for $500+. Second, it has the same features as a professional-quality manual speed film camera, which means that you should have a basic knowledge of f-stops, shutter speeds, aperture, and so on; I myself have little of this basic knowledge and usually just scroll through the settings until the picture on the LCD looks good. I've gotten better, and the camera does do most of the work for you, but getting the hang of it is a challenge. Third, the CDs take some time to save each photograph, so it is difficult to get a succession of pictures manually without a wait time in between. However, there is a "burst" setting that will take 3 successive pictures, thus allowing you to capture motion or chase down an active baby for that perfect shot without the wait. Finally, the CD-RWs are hard to come by. I thought I could just buy generic mini-CDRs in the store, but when I tried them in the camera it gave me fits and flashed messages like "Please use Sony Mavica disks." Thus, I recommend locating ([...] is one place) and purchasing a few CD-RWs rather than CDRs if you plan to upload photos to your computer and reuse the disks to save some money.

Overall, I have found this camera to be worth the money for me, because I can take a lot of photographs, delete what I don't like, keep or erase the CDs with a minimum of hassle (and upload them on various computers without special equipment, thus allowing me to share with family), and make mini videos that I can keep or share without having to dig out the old 8mm video camera and find a blank tape. The camera charges quickly as well, although I recommend taking the charger with you on vacations and such because the battery does wear down somewhat quickly.

According to the record in my camera, I have taken more than 5000 photos or videos in the past 2 years; that's a lot of photo processing and film costs saved!

I love this camera. It takes great pictures. Simple to use. The best thing about it is the CD it uses. You do not have to take up space in your computer. Your pictures are already stored on the CD.

I have had the CD500 for about 2 years now and offer the following pros and cons. Pros first:

The CD media is excellent. These can be bought at Walmart or on line in bulk or in computer stores all very inexpensively. I use the standard 160K or so size picture which is easily e-mailable and the CD will hold about 1,200 of these. If you use the smaller 80 K you can double that but the clairty losses some. I have made 8x10 prints of the 165K size and they picture is excellent, even won a place in a national calendar with a shot of that size.

One psrson said she could not do black and white, if you scroll thru the excellent menu or read the manual this is not at all a difficult task. There are many options from full automatic to full manual and many other options if you read the manual or scroll thru the index.

The CD holds so many that a small inventory will last for a long vacation with lots of pic taking. Extra 3rd party batteries are easy to find as also are external battery chargers including adapter cords for the cigerette lighter in a car.

Uploading is a cynch. In XP just plug the USB in to the camera and computer and turn the camera on. In a moment the system sees the camera as an external hard drive and you can simply copy and paste at will. I user the CD-RW so when all done I reformat the CD in the camera and am ready to go again. I use 3rd party software for photo enhancement/cropping which adds an excellent dimension to your end results to fix what a novice messed up but now to look perfect.

Camera has built in flash which works fine but with optional lenses you need the external add on flash. I have both and they are awesome. The camera has a laser to read ambient light and distance, it talks to the flash for sync and the photo is perfect. Macro needs a pro for close ups but even an amature can do well if careful. Repeat shots to experiment are so cheap why not do so and learn!

The optional lens adapter ring is invaluable even if you do not use optional lens add ons where you can put a filter on to protect the lens. The adapter ring also protects the moving lens from dust and damage, a most important safety feature, well worth the cost.

Third party manufacturors make products from lenses to flashes to batteries to chargers to CDs and anything else that camera could use at a cost far less than Sony asks and they all work fine.

Over all this is the finest camera I have ever owned, have had a wide variety of film cameras and quite a few digitals. The only option that is worthless is the add on view finder, that really needs to be thrown out and re-engineered from scratch.

Sony and others offer add on wide angle, fish eye, and telephoto lenses. I really do not see need for any but I do have the wide angle lens on my camera and use it all the time. One needs to be careful on zoom that if you zoom in with the optional lens and especially if you have a filter you will get rounded corner shadows. That is not a fault of the camera but moreso of the lens. The standard camera has a wide enough field of view as is for indoor shots and tele capabilities for distance. Again add on lenses usually are not needed where the camera is all but totally self contained camera set.

Cons: The buttons on the back are located where your thumb will go and you will inadvertantly toggle things you never wanted to toggle. Also the main control button is very small and difficult use. The Cybershot uses the same kind of control but the center button is larger and flat making it much easier to use. This camera could use that part and a better location.

There is a lag time between shots especially between movie shots. Movies can be a few seconds to over an hour per CD. But the record time is a mechanical process that takes time as opposed to the memory sticks, but the record time is far less but does require a bit of time. The longer the movie the longer record time needed. The camera needs to be held gently and still during recording, but this is a camer, not a jack hammer. But the flexibility and cost effectiveness makes the CD over all the choice to beat all.

The CD will not work in your computer unless you finialize it in the camera. If you do that, then any unused space on the CD is lost, but the cost of the CD is cheap enough that this is moot. This camera will work fine on XP and a CD is included for W-2000 which also works well. With the CD huge storage of 2,400 small pixel up to 90 large pixel shots per CD they put the memory stick into the trunk, way past the back seat! As of Jan 2006 I don't see Sony offering these anymore, but is a shame where this is the vest camera they ever made. Maybe the next one will use the new DVD which makes all this even cheaper by adding many times the storage on the same size media.

Over all the camera is fully inclusive for the novice or pro giving any level of photog almost any option he/she may want. The manual is well written and complete. The menu on the camera is also complete. As with any very high end camera you will need to spend some time learning all this camera can do and has to offer. If you don't want to do that, then buy a cheap camera and live with the results. If you buy this one you will have photo quality and versatility equal to or better than the most expensive film camera. Buying this camera will not ever be a regrettable move unless you do not follow instructions (duh).

The external lenses are fine but if used with the internal flash you will get a shadow on the picture. The only way is to have the external flash unit if using the optional lenses.

I have had a Sony Mavica for the past two years and I have been having a lot of problems with it. In fact I just got it back today from the service department in Tx and it still doesn't work. The screen went blank one day, just wouldn't show photos on the LCD. I sent it into Sony free of charge and a new LCD was placed in the camera. When I got the camera back there was a distinct color shift. The colors look correct on the LCD, but on all other devices my photos are magenta instead of red, which make my kids look purple. I can color correct in Photo Shop, but for a $500.00 camera it is turning out to be a real boat anchore. Save your money, buy anything but Sony. The second round of service cost me a whopping $223.00. Which now makes my boat anchore worth $723.00.

The Sony Mavica series started it all with the Floppy disk Cameras ( that are still the most popular camera for internet pictures.)
Starting with the Mavica MVC CD1000 20X Zoom Sony did it again..
Mini Compact disks, the CD1000 could only use read only disks - CD-Rs.
With the CD200 Sony set real lead in Media with a camera that uses CD-R and rewriteable CD-RW disks. General Cost 50 cents for a CD-R and $2 bucks for a rewriteable CD-RW.
Using the Small ring in CDrom drives the mini CDs work just like a normal full sized CD. Capacity from 150 to 220 Megabits, or 200 to 2500 pictures depending on your selected resolution for each picture.
With all the newer operating systems XP ect the Camera Scanner wizards and viewers make it Childs play to download pictures and look at them. The camera is easy to use, anyone can pick it up and soon be taking digital pictures.
The entire series of Mavica MVC CDs are great.. with the CD500 at 5 megapixels with upgraded Lazers and CCDs is the top of the line.

It was great, while it lasted. Although it's too heavy to take on every trip and take those impulsive candid shots. It fits in my diaper bag, but not my purse. About 6 months ago (after 18 months of ownership) we started having trouble getting it to turn on. My husband figured out a "trick" to turn it on (push down on the button while pushing the lever), which worked for a month or so. Then suddenly, the problem disappeared. Yippee! Now, with Christmas less than a month away, it WON'T TURN ON AT ALL!!! I cannot explain how furious I am. It's not like I can send it for repair and have it back by the holidays. My other complaint is with the batteries. Over time, they last less and less..... and take longer and longer to charge up. You will definitely need more than 2 batteries after a while. My next camera will NOT be a Sony. IT's not like we were rough with it; we treated that thing with more care than the baby... and it still busted. grrrr.....

I had a Sony Mavica 400 and it worked beautifully for 4 years. I never, ever had a problem with it, and it went everywhere with me. I took around 8,000 photos with it and it was wonderful. But then it was stolen from around my neck by a gang of thugs in St Petersburg, Russia in 2005.

The insurance company replaced the 400 with this model, the MVCCD500, which I was very excited about getting - the next-generation model, with improved picture quality and more megapixels. How wrong I was to be excited.

This piece of junk lasted a total of 6 months before it suddenly stopped doing what it was meant to do. It suddenly and without warning wasn't able to access a disc that hadn't been finalised, and after changing batteries it wasn't able to access the disc. To top this off, it also now can't write any photo taken on 5 megapixels - all I get is a 'Disc Error' everytime I take a 5 megapixel photo. I now have to finalise the disc when the battery gets low, and I have to be very, very careful the back door (where the CD-R goes in) and the battery door don't open .

I relocated to the UK soon after getting this camera, and Sony UK refused to honour the 'Worldwide Warranty', even though I had the receipt and the warranty with me. As the camera came from Australia, Sony refused to even deal with me - they told me I had to talk to Sony Australia ... on the other side of the planet, and then asked me to leave their premises!

I am now struggling to take ANY photos with this thing. It is now out of warranty, only takes 1 in 3 photos properly (none in 5 megapixels), and to top it all off, the 8cm CD-R's are next to impossible to buy outside the USA. And you can't even mail-order them from the US - no shop will sell them overseas. Sony couldn't even help me to locate a supplier of the CD-R's in the UK, even when they featured the Sony CD-R's on the Sony UK web site. In response to my enquiry regarding the discs, I was told they couldn't help me and suggested I do a search on an internet search engine for them. (Gee Sony, I hadn't thought of that. Thanks for the help.) I eventually found one shop in central London that sells them. When this shop stops selling them, the camera will be a useless paperweight.

If you are stupid enough to buy this camera, expect it to stop working within a year of buying it, and expect zero support from Sony. In fact, just expect abuse from Sony when it stops working.

I have just bought a Nikon D80, and am thrilled with the brilliance of this camera. Buy a digital camera from a manufacturer of real cameras, not a company that produces junk. Obviously Sony have given up on this technology, and tough luck if you were fooled into buying it. My assumption is they are no longer supporting the Mavica technology and refuse to have anything to do with any customer that owns one.

I'm a happy camper. I purchased my SONY MAVICA MVC-CD500 digital camera in 2002 when it was first marketed. As of this writing it's 2007 and I use it almost daily in my work. It's been a great workhorse. It plugs directly into iPhoto on my Mac - transferring images is quick and seamless.

I've not experienced any of the problems other reviewers have mentioned. I suppose, like with ANY product, the occasional lemon comes off the line. My camera has given me years of perfect performance!

I don't use all the features: For instance - if I want sepia tone photos or special effects I take them into PhotoShop and work there. The photos I get from the CD-500 are crisp, clear and high resolution so it makes editing them a breeze.

This reviewer gives the CD-500 two thumbs up. It's the best digital camera I've used.