Written by Paul Belmudes

Sanyo Xacti VPC-WH1 and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1

I just received my new waterproof Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1 camera that I purchased on Ebay for $280 plus USPS Priority shipping this last week. I quickly loaded it up with a 16 Gig SDHC card and mounted it as my second camera for my kayak. For the last 3 months, I have been using a Sanyo Xacti VPC-WH1 and have been really impressed with HD quality it has provided. With both cameras mounted on my kayak, my goal was to achieve a more professional cut views when shooting future videos.

With the opportunity to fish South Point with my pal Reggie, here is the comparison demo.

The Sanyo Xacti VPC-WH1 is built to withstand taking a pasting from water, whether it’s fresh or salty. You can take it down ten feet when shooting your catches. In terms of the camcorder, the 720p HD ready movies on the Sanyo Xacti VPC-WH1 look ace for such a bargain (around $350 with Amazon.com). Shots in both watery and dry surroundings look crisp and clear and are enhanced by the inclusion of a 30x optical zoom, which gives you tight, detailed pictures every time.

The Sanyo Xacti VPC-WH1 has ample file support, churning out flicks in MP4 which you can either add to your iMovie on your Mac, or edit using the bundled free editing software on your PC. I recommend using a separate program for video editing if you can. The one I use for PC editing is the Cyberlink PowerDirector 9 that imports the m2ts video file format smoothly.

The Sanyo Xacti VPC-WH1 suffers in the still photography jpg files it produces with a measly two megapixels output. Overall, there is more to the camera that I can point out but the video on YouTube that I uploaded can show you the true results.

As for the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1, the reason I purchased this camera was for the waterproof and shockproof still photography it produces as well as the adequate HD video it captures. The disapointment was when the camera faces the sun as it created a vertical line streak in video. The buttons on the camera are very small and complex to operate when wearing fishing gloves, not a problem when the gloves are off.

The quality of the video when shooting away from the sun is excellent. Another reason I chose this camera as my second choice was because I did purchase the new GoPro HD video camera. I truly hated that camera as it produced a fish eye look on all videos... thus resulting in my sending it back to the retailer.

Overall, I feel that both cameras will complement each other when editing as I can sort through the raw footage and choose the video segments that demonstrate decent quality. Watch the demo video fully and you will see the difference. You will probably not notice much difference with future videos unless I point it out, especially when viewing the YouTube rendered files that have been uploaded on the YakHawaii Channel.

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