Akio Morita And 1981′s Sony Mavica Electronic Camera
Searching around for Sony stuff on the Internet can lead you in some random directions. I recently came across a picture of Akio Morita, a co-founder of Sony Corporation, holding a Mavica. It inspired me to learn more about this product. Many of you probably have never seen this interesting camera from Sony’s past, but let me tell you about it..
On August 25, 1981, at a packed conference in Tokyo, Sony unveiled a prototype of the company’s first still video camera, the Mavica (Magnetic Video Camera). It recorded images on two-inch floppy disks (later the industry standard Video Floppy) and played them back on a TV set or Video monitor. The Mavica was not a digital camera, but a TV camera capable of writing TV quality stills onto magnetic disks, with a shutter that would allow it to freeze frames within the limits set by twin-field interlace making up the complete frame. The Mavica was a single lens reflex with interchangeable lenses.
The original Mavica was provided with three bayonet-mounted lenses: a 25mm f/2, a 50mm f/1.4, and 16-65mm f/1.4 zoom. CCD size was 570 x 490 pixels on a 10mm x 12mm chip. F/stop was controlled manually according to lighted arrows that appeared in the viewfinder. Light sensitivity was rated at ISO 200. The original Mavica had only one shutter speed, 1/60th second.
Each image was recorded in its own single circle on the floppy disk that Sony called the “Mavipak.” Up to fifty color photos could be stored on one Mavipak. Multiple exposure of 2, 4, 8. or 20 images could be selected. The Mavica was powered by three AA-size batteries. Images were displayed on a television set and were considered to be equal in quality to the maximum capability of a TV set of that time.
Here is the original Mr. Walkman*, Nobutoshi Kihara, displaying a prototype model of Sony’s digital camera Mavica, during an interview with AFP reporter at Sony’s affiliated laboratory crowned with his name Sony Kihara Laboratory in Tokyo 13 June 2006. He retired the same year.
Obviously, the the Mavica line has been discontinued, as flash memory rendered tape formats useless in numerous aspects for point-and-shoot cameras. Do you remember the Mavica?
* – Mr.Walkman is a favored nickname of Nobutoshi Kihara, who sketched out designs for the revolutionary Walkman on a piece of paper.
I do remember mavica, but for some reason I was never too keen on sony’s photography division in the early days and preferred companies like canon, or nikon for digi cameras, still do, but it is clear that sony is up to league with their stuff now.
I am guessing no working consumer model appeared a few years later?
What an awesome find!! Thanks for sharing it. I wonder if it was ever released or never moved past the prototype stage.
I have some of those floppy disks and I'm trying to find a way to pull images out of them. Do you have any suggestion, is there any reader for those floppy disks? The Mavica camera does not work anymore, I would only like to be able to pull out all my images without losing memories of my children.
Thank you.
I have a Mavica disc player/recorder that uses 2″ floppy discs. Have you found someone to save your photos yet ?
It was released a couple of years later. I have one. Bought it through military BX while overseas in Europe. (Around '84 or '85 I think) Don”t know if it ever made it to the U.S. market or not. Found your posts because I'm trying to get it up and running to see if I can get my pics off the disks. This one was designed as a point and shoot. You hold it flat, kinda like looking through binoculars. The batteries were typical Sony…proprietary nicads that have long since died and cannot be rebuilt because the cells are not available. The power adapter/charger still powers the camera though…now if I can just find the old video adapter cable and plug it into a TV………Then I can try to figure out how to make something of still video pictures………….
It was released a couple of years later. I have one. Bought it through military BX while overseas in Europe. (Around '84 or '85 I think) Don”t know if it ever made it to the U.S. market or not. Found your posts because I'm trying to get it up and running to see if I can get my pics off the disks. This one was designed as a point and shoot. You hold it flat, kinda like looking through binoculars. The batteries were typical Sony…proprietary nicads that have long since died and cannot be rebuilt because the cells are not available. The power adapter/charger still powers the camera though…now if I can just find the old video adapter cable and plug it into a TV………Then I can try to figure out how to make something of still video pictures………….
Classic camera! Thanks for sharing.
Classic camera! Thanks for sharing.