I have never submitted a question before, but have been nothing less than impressed by this web site and the handling of inquiries by the readers and responders. What a fabulous forum!

I am currently seeking to purchase a digital camera, having survived to date with a NIKON 35mm SLR with telephoto and a point-&-shoot Olympus Stylus for convenience. Times are changing and the moe to digital seems necessary (and exciting!), but I get lost in finding the right camera for my needs. I have children active in competitive sports (primarily soccer) which involves distance shooting and high action - normally outdoors and many times in bright sun light. The pictures are intended to be shared via email, etc. but also to print (though normally probably not larger than 5 x 7 or 8 x 10 at the outside). Also, heavy travel is involved with many of the competitions so size and 'carry-ability' is important.

The zoom seems to be one of the great limiters to my options where a 3X just doesn't seem right. I see listed add-on telephoto lens attachments but do not know their applicability, their impact on performance, how they work (e.g. does 2X effectively double a 3X zoom or is it additive or what????).

With this in mind (and a personal bias to SONY products), I have narrowed my focus (no pun intended, grin...)to 2 leading models: the SONY MVC-FD95 and the SONY DSC-F505V. Can anyone help me with my choice in this matter?

I summarize my 'thinking' below - but am not confident that I have mastered the subject and would appreciate any builds, corrections, suggestions or direction - and even alternatives!! MVC-FD95 Strengths: .. 10X optical zoom .. Image stabilization .. Battery charge life .. USB download .. Memory stick adapter (do they work?) .. Viewfinder and LCD display .. zoom, zoom, zoom...... Weaknesses: .... Size / bulkiness .... Weight .... Floppy storage (why not super disk??) .... Memory stick adapter (performance impact?)

DSC-F505V Strength: .. Size and weight (convenient) .. Memory stick .. 5X zoom (limiting??) .. USB connection Weaknesses: .... So small to hold (seems almost awkward) .... No image stabilization .... Time needed between consecutive shots .... Battery charge life .... No viewfinder (outdoors)

HELP! My gratitude in advance for any guidance or assistance!

-- David Hamilton (dave6632@aol.com), August 03, 2000

Answers

Look at the Sony CD1000 which has all of the advantages of the FD95 but uses a mini CD for storage of around 150MB. See review here and at Steve's. Add-on lenses have vignetting for much of the zoom range and some shots will be missed because it was not installed when needed for a quick s

-- Dan Morris (dmorris@aol.com), August 04, 2000.

For a lot more money, look at the Nikon D1 and Canon D30 digital SLR cameras. I will get the D30

-- Dan Morris (dmorris@aol.com), August 06, 2000.

Try submitting your question here:

http://www.mavican.nu/cgi-bin/mavica/mavica.pl

-- Tony Brent (ajbrent@mich.com), August 10, 2000.

Can't help much with info about the FD95 , but my wife and I recently went thru the similar teeth gnashing over the Canon 990 and Sony F505V. We chose the F505V and we have not had any regrets, a great camera with enough gee-gaws so as not to be totally confusing but plenty enough to get the shots however we want 'em. The lack of viewfinder can be a pain sometimes (bright conditions) but the quality of the LCD surpasses most of the other cameras we tried. The size of the camera is initially odd but in very short order you come to love the design and ergonomic fit of holding it by the lens barrel (excellent design) and WHAT A LENS! The Ziess boost in picture quality surpasses the "true" 3.3m/pixes out there (F505V is actually about 2.6m/pix). My only real complaint so far is the lousy Sony Website. The manual overrides are quite extensive (although no "full" override) enough to provide virtually any shot options. Email capabilities are built -in (picture degradation over the net is still a problem with most any digital format I've tried) mpeg/tiff modes provide an adequate substitute for rapid shot succession, but this is an area I stilll need to play with. An all around great choice of a camera!

-- Steve Allsopp (stevenallsopp@earthlink.net), August 22, 2000.