Sanyo VPC-CG6 Flash Media Camcorder

I bought this with some trepidation, generally being of the
" if it sounds too good to be true, it generally is " persuasion. 6MP digital still pictures AND high quality 640x480 video on a par with MiniDV camcorders? A new compression format that allows much more recording time and yet manages to deliver excellent quality? AND it records to SD and SDHC cards? WOW!

But this camera has for the most parts surprised and delighted me. If anything, I should start with the quirks, because they are relatively few:

1) The lens cap is of the push-on type. It is secured to the camera by a little loop, and unless you grip the loop when filming it has a tendency to be picked up by the wind and make UFO-like appearances on your home video. Easily taken care of, but a built-in lens cover would have been nice.
2) There is no lens hood available, which is a pity because this camera is one of the more flare-prone ones I've used in my life. So, when shooting at direct or oblique angles to a bright sun, you are advised to shield the lens with your free hand. There is also a minor amount of CCD bloom visible on very bright, overcast days, something I've also seen on cameras costing a lot more
3) If you're into "deep" editing, you have to upgrade your computer unless you already have a fairly recent, powerful one. Today's dual core Intel and similar processors should be fine; spring for at least 2 GB memory and a dedicated video card.
4) Last but not least, and possibly most damning, this is NOT a camera you want to have with you in a dim environment. The video will work remarkably well in less than ideal light, but switch to camera mode and you will be very frustrated quickly. In my opinion, the single greatest omission on this camera was the lack of an AF-assist light or even one of the cursed pre-flash AF assist modes.

That's about all the bad stuff I can think of, which isn't much. The next-to-last item I mentioned above about computer capacity applies to pretty much any heavy-duty video editing programs, so it shouldn't be held against the camera; I just wanted to be sure to mention it here for potential purchasers. Truth be told I have never needed to use the editing software because the simple cuts, joins and splices I restrict my editing to can be done, easily and quickly, in-camera.

The real pluses of this camera are the portability and grip implementation. I fell in love with the way this little beauty could be held in any position imaginable, with one hand, while I could still see what was being recorded on the tiltable LCD. Overhead, waist-level and ground-level macro shots are a cinch with this ( and it has a really excellent macro mode, which was another pleasant surprise ). The video quality, while it doesn't sound spectacular in any but the recording time departments, actually blows away any "similar" 640x480 video from a digital camera and can actually produce better output - in my opinion - than some much bigger and more expensive mini-DV and DVR camcorders, without needing to use replaceable media.

I was able to get in excess of two hours of recording time at the highest TV-SHQ mode onto a 4 GB SDHC card. Sanyo claims in excess of 5 hours of recording time at highest quality on the newer 8GB SDHC cards, which I find entirely believable based on my experience with the 4GB version.

For those of you new to the concept of digital capture, each movie clip you take in the MPEG 4 AVC/H.264 format is saved on the card as a discrete file, similar to digital image stills, in what is knows as RAM - random access memory - recording. This means you can look at each clip you have taken by browsing through a preview screen of thumbnails and selecting the clip you want to view. After you've viewed it, if you decide it's too long or too short or that only the middle part is interesting, you can edit it in camera and save the result as a new file ( the old file will be kept unless you choose to overwrite, which the camera does ask you ). You can also simply delete it.

You can view the results on screen, on your PC, or on a TV. My camera gave surprisingly good rendition - in standard definition, of course - on my HDTV, being virtually indistinguishable in most respects from the output of my miniDV, in some cases even better. The LCD on the camera itself, while not as high-resolution as some, is very pleasing to look at and shows more than enough detail so you can enjoy your clips online.

The playback on a PC is a little dicey. Because the format used is so new, even relatively recent PC's and their OS may lack the appropriate codecs for their players; and I repeat that to use the video editing software that came with the camera you'll need a pretty jacked up PC. However, unless your PC is completely moribund - in which case, you should upgrade anyhow if you're even considering digital video capture - there is a free, downloadable player called the " VLC media player " which is quite effective and allows you to view the videos with ease. The download is less than 2 GB and it has worked beautifully for me. It won't let you do any significant editing, but it's a great little player. For more technical information, google "Steve's Digicams", then click on discussion forums and click on "Sanyo". There seem to be a lot of quite technically sophisticated users there with answers to virtually any question you might have.

The grip is done in such a way that you hold the camera much like you would hold a toy gun, although I preferred to use my index finger to "wrap" around the top of the camera to give me a secure grip on this small item. The thumb does most of the work. There are two dedicated buttons for video and camera recording, as well as a menu and playback buttons, and a 10x optical zoom lens rocker switch controller. There's also a little joystick which is used to toggle through menu settings, picture thumbnails, and which can be programmed with selectable "shortcut" functions. Say, for example, that you most often use the ISO and flash settings on your existing camera. Well, in the Xacti, you can assign those two functions to any up/down, left/right movement of the joystick. You're about to take a portrait of someone with backlighting - a quick nudge on the joystick in the assigned direction, and you can cycle to the desired flash setting ( in this case forced flash ) in a matter of two seconds. No need to wade through a complicated menu. Same idea with ISO settings. That leaves you two additional button directions to customize.

You can turn the camera on and off between shooting, but I rarely did. Instead, after taking a digital still or shooting a movie clip, I just closed the LCD which puts the camera into "standby" mode. See something all of a sudden? Just open the LCD and within a second or two you are ready to shoot again.

This camera has so many bells and whistles I'd take up twenty more pages decribing them. Suffice it to say that at this price point, the camera is an absolute steal. It is the first camera of which I can truly say that I don't leave home without it. That alone has resulted in so many video opportunities that I would have missed had I been forced to think about bringing my relatively bulky and "standard-grip" miniDV camcorder with me.