We have seen digital camera technology mature in the past few years to produce good quality photos with a range of features to satisfy all levels of photography.

But there is one area of digital camera technology that is still a hindrance and thats where to store all those photos when you go on a long trip. Lugging a cumbersome laptop around is one option, or you can carry a fist full of flash memory cards but that can become an expensive option.

Alternative media such as floppy disks have been tried; however, with their limited storage and slow access times they never really became popular with consumers. Sonys release of the MVC-CD300 aims to solve this problem by writing to a mini CD-R/CD-RW.

The MVC-CD300 is part of the Mavica series of cameras and inherits the Sony style and quality. But what separates this camera is its ability to store over 80 photos at 3.3-megapixel or 2,048 x 1,536-pixel resolution on one 8cm CD-R or CD-RW. And when you compare the price of $49.90 for five 156MB CD-Rs with $375 for one 128MB memory stick, this option makes good economical sense in the long run.

Although the MVC-CD300 comes with a USB connection for transferring information to PC or Macintosh we found it far easier and faster to finalise the CD-RW and put the 8cm disc straight into a CD-ROM drive.

Nearly all drives will accept the 8cm CD format and if you look in your CD-ROM tray you should see a smaller indent to accommodate the media.

You will need to load the Adaptec UDF reader on the PC or Mac before you can read the CD-R or CD-RW. If your computer has a CD-RW drive with the Adaptec UDF reader, such as Adaptec DirectCD, you will be able to delete or modify images and reuse the media.

The advantage of CD is that its permanent and alleviates the need to transfer to a hard drive and then to a standard 12cm CD-R.

The CD-R drive will take just over five seconds to spin up after powering on before you can shoot. The two-stage button will automatically adjust focus and aperture, and will simulate a click sound when pressed. A burst mode will allow three hi-res photos to be taken in quick succession before having to stop and wait for the images to be stored on disc. This is the biggest limitation of this technology. However, there is a write time to CD of about 1.5 seconds.

There is also a movie option that can turn the camera into a pseudo-camcorder, but due to its limited memory it can only take short scenes before it must stop and write to disc. At 320 x 240 it will take 60 seconds of video.

Apart from the CD-R technology the MVC-CD300 takes an impressive photo in high-resolution JPEG and TIFF format, 3x optical and 6x digital zoom and a picture playback. It is ideal for studio work or those who go on long trips and want to take lots of photos.