At last. A digital camera tailor-made for Realtors. But before you groan, "Oh, no. Yet another new technology to learn!," you will be pleased to learn that Sony's Digital Mavica(R) is designed to get the job done with as little fuss as possible and at a surprisingly affordable price.

It seems too easy to be true, but taking pictures with the Sony Digital Mavica(R) really is a snap. Not only is every feature clearly marked and easy to use, you can operate the camera with little or no previous instruction. At a suggested retail price of between $599 to $799, the costs are nominal compared to potential return on investment.

Why should Realtors go digital? As a marketing tool, digital photos offer a multitude of advantages over traditional print photography:

1. Show off more of your listings. You can put the photos on your Web page and search-engine partners to truly show your listings to your advantage, and you can edit or update the photos at will. Unlike newspaper advertising, you aren't charged for every image.
2. No space limitations. Unlike a printed graphic, feature sheet, or, again, the newspaper ad, the Web doesn't limit you to a certain number of pages. Now you can present your less-expensive homes with the same panache that you used to reserve only for your highest-priced homes. In other words, pictures say a thousand words, and you can present as many pictures as you want for each home at no additional cost.
3. Show new points of view. You can take consumers where they rarely get to go, through the neighborhood, nearby parks, local schools, interior rooms, and backyard views. With the Mavica(R) zoom and telephoto features, you can show close-ups of that handpainted backsplash, wood trim, or plaster moldings. Show the panarama of a golf course view, sunset from the verandah, or the breaking waves of the shoreline.
4. No bad shots. You can see the image you have just taken instantly on playback, and you can retake the shot if you got too much garage and not enough flower bed. Delete any images you don't like.
5. No waiting. All you need is a standard floppy disk. The camera stores up to 40 images at a time at a 640 by 480 bit VGA resolution (the approximate resolution of a common color inkjet printer.) Stored in a JPEG file, a common image compression format, the images can be transfered onto any PC or Macintosh computer or printed directly onto any printer paper.
6. Instant marketing tool. The keepers are stored to a floppy disk that you can access instantly. You can e-mail your listing photos to prospects and other Realtors the same day, making your contact management software that much more productive. And if you need photos for a presentation? Just print them off your computer. One, two, three.
7. No additional costs. No developing or battery costs, that is. You are only paying for the floppy disk and your Internet access. And maybe that Pentium-66 that you bought on installments three years ago. Your battery is a rechargable Lithium battery, good for multiple outings and about 150 pictures.

Why do we like the Sony Mavica(R) so much? As the only digital camera currently to transfer images via floppy disk, the Mavica(R) is automatically set apart from its competitors as the quickest, easiest photo marketing tool for busy Realtors. Other digital cameras such as the Kodak 120 may provide better clarity of image at competitive price points, but until the resolution of the Web significantly improves, the Mavica(R)'s resolution will be good enough for several years to come.

Published: February 6, 1998

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