Hi everyone,

as I didn’t find any article on the Sanyo Xacti HD2, I thought I should start a thread to exchange experiences.

I just bought one, together with the Epoque EHS 510H housing.

It will take a few weeks before I can speak of experiences with using it underwater, so far, I could only try it “dry”.

A few additions to the fact-sheet:

- battery duration (Li-Ion, 1200mAh, 3.7V) is specified as 80min continous video recording (1280x720 MPEG 4 @ 9 MBit/s), I can confirm this.

- image format is not only 4:3, for stills you can choose 16:9, too, and for HD video it’s always 16:9

- video standard is MPEG4 (but not AVC / H.264), audio is recorded as AAC, 16bit/48kHz, datarate 128kbit/s

- image stabilisation - yes, there is one, but only for video shooting. No stabilisation for still images.

- media type is not only SD, but also SDHC - I use an 8GB class 6 card

- connections is not only S-VIDEO, but also HDMI and YUV component are available (and of course USB 2.0)

Find the complete manual here: http://www.sanyo-xacti.com/support/manuals/SANYO_HD2_Kamera_en.pdf

My first impressions:

Positive:
+ still image quality good (as to be expected from a good compact camera, not like a SLR, of course)
+ video image quality good (as to be expected from a compact camera, not like a professional camcorder, of course)
+ very nice and rarely found: manual adjustment of everything possible - shutter/exposure/ISO/ND-filter/focus, still photo shutter up to 4s.
+ very good macro modus - impressive stills and videos possible from 1cm (!) distance on
+ video cutting/concatenation functions - while simple - are actually useful.
+ very fast start-up - especially from “energy saving mode”, but also from stand-by.
+ exceptionally great white balancing - especially custom white-balancing impressively good
+ data easily accessible from non-Windows operating systems, USB interface presented as ordinary storage device, .mp4 / .jpg / .m4a files are easily processable using free software.

Negative:
- sometimes “nervous” auto-focus
- when using manual focusing, no change of focus possible during video shooting
- no more 60fps videos as with Xacti HD1 (why, Sanyo?)

Another guys review may be found at: http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Sanyo-Xacti-VPC-HD2-Camcorder-Review.htm

On the Epoque EHS 510H underwater housing: (not actually tested under water as of yet)

The manufacturer claims that every function of the camera is accessible in the UW-housing. This is _not_ true. You won’t be able to use the built-in flash. Also, the “up"-button of the “joystick” is inaccessible, also making the “fix focus while shooting video"-function inaccessible.

The manual of the housing is a nightmare of bad translation. Luckily, most things are obvious.

Adding a personal comment on the http://www.camcorderinfo.com review:

The main point of criticism there is the handling/usability of the buttons/menus/interfaces. The Xacti HD2 was obviously optimized for small size, and if you don’t have a problem to handle your tiny mobile, you won’t have a problem handling the HD2. I think the reviewer is just one of those who expect huge levers for thick fingers and a seperate knob for each function. Of course, you won’t find that on the HD2.

Another point of criticism is the image quality for videos. I cannot second that - the image quality is far better than everything I’ve seen from any existing compact camera. It is of course not as good - especially in low-light situations - than what you would expect from a camera 3 times as big and two times as expensive. If size and price don’t matter, this camera is certainly not for you. But if you want a compact camera, I don’t see a better alternative to the Xacti HD2 at this time.

for these interested in the sanyo HD camcorder, we have an articles about the
Sanyo HDA1 in our german section. You can find it here:
Sanyo Xacti HD1A & MB-SUB Light-Station

/lars

(but don’t confuse the HD1A with the HD2 - though mechanically alike, there are important differences).

Hi folks,

I was planning on diving with my Xacti HD1 this summer and consequently ordered the Epoque housing + a Fisheye LED48DX light.
I am more interested in the photo than the video aspect and I have to say I have been highly disappointed with the HD1 sensitivity in low light conditions (without even trying it underwater).

As the housing and the light were a considerable investment I chose to sell my HD1 and buy a HD2 (which is on its way).
As a matter of fact, I have read on some reviews and articles that there was a dramatic improvement in the cameras light sensitivity between HD1 and HD2; a 75% increase.

I know it is too late and I have already ordered but does anyone have an opinion on what to really expect from the HD2?

I was previously using a Sony DSCP9, so you can see that there is a good margin for improvement! LOL.

Here are a few photos made with the Sony (without any light) , it’s not too bad but I hope to get better results this year!

Now that I have some photos and videos taken with the HD2 I can say I’m very satisfied with their quality. Of course I cannot compare to the HD1, and I prefer video over still images, but as you can see from the examples attached, one can make nice photos with the HD2 under water.

“sample1” an un-postprocessed(!) (only scaled down/re-saved to match upload limit here) still shot taken at about 15m depth, using only daylight (and the custom white balance of the camera).

“sample2” is a screen-shot extracted from a video taken with the HD2 at a depth of about 25m, again using only daylight and custom white balance of the camera, only postprocessing is an “auto-gain” filter, downscaling (from 1280x720) and re-encoding with MPEG4.

“sample3” is another still extract from a HD video, in an underwater cave (Cenote), using only light from another divers Halogen lamp, thus an absolute worst-case lighting scenario.

Professional cameras might do even better, but for the size factor and price, the HD2 seems to make a very good underwater camera…

By the way: Save your money on a red-filter - you won’t need it. Just take a coated white sheet of paper with you under water, and set the custom white balance at about the depth and from about the distance you want to shoot. Looks better than images with the red filter…

You liar, this is a photo of a fish tank !

Wow! This is quite nice for 15m deep photos, although the tropical waters in which it has been taken are probably a lot clearer than the mediterranean sea, which is where I am diving. I expect to encounter my groupers between 15 and 30m.

The photos from the DSCP9 had a tendency to be already too blue at the surface (which shows a bit on my photos), so you can imagine it was not really suited for underwater photography.
I can definitely expect an improvement in that area.

From my experience with the DSCP9, the autofocus can be a major source of trouble as well, especially with all the particles. The HD1’s AF was a bit sluggish as well, I hope the HD2’s is going to be better but from the reviews I have read it does not look like it is its strongest quality. I hope this is wrong.

Anyway, thanks for the photos Peter, the proof seems to be in the pudding! I’ll post mine as soon as I come back from my dives.

Peter Niemayer - 13 June 2007 04:00 PM

By the way: Save your money on a red-filter - you won’t need it. Just take a coated white sheet of paper with you under water, and set the custom white balance at about the depth and from about the distance you want to shoot. Looks better than images with the red filter…

Hi Peter,

I disagree about your statement on a general level and would be impressed if this camera is really different.

Down to a depth of max. 5 meters what you said is absolutely true for most cameras. If you want to go
deeper the results should substantially improve if you combine flipped-down filter with white balancing.

Andreas Voeltz - 17 June 2007 03:41 PM

I disagree about your statement on a general level and would be impressed if this camera is really different.

Actually, I was quite impressed, too, when I tried. With other cameras, when configuring kind of an “extreme” custom white balance by taking a white sheet underwater, I’ve never gained usable results before - the red channel was boosted, but due to the limited dynamic range that meant a few bright red spots and no red elsewhere, the histograms looked awful.

With the Xacti HD2, I experienced a pleasant surprise - just take a look at the first of the three example images above - it was taken without a red filter at about 15m depth, and has not been postprocessed for white-balance!

Since I had bought a red-filter already, I did try it under water, but the results where not really better than without.

I also made this experiment: With the red-filter in place and using custom white balance, I took an ordinary shot at the surface using daylight. Not only was the custom white balance working well, reverting the effect of the red-filter, the most astonishing thing to me was that when looking at the color-histograms of the red/green/blue channels, there were no visible signs of any “stretching”. Maybe the HD2 applies color correction before the data is truncated to 8bits per channel, I don’t know, but I know it works a lot better in this area than e.g. the Sea&Sea;8000, the Casio Exilim and others I have tried before.

Peter, what you wrote is very interesting/amazing and my
thoughts for explaining it go in the same direction as yours.

However the Turtle looks a little bit drained to me, compared
to shots where you white balanced at a certain depth through
the filter. if you could do a certain test with a stationary object
and compare it side-by-side we could dig more into this.

Andreas Voeltz - 18 June 2007 11:31 AM

However the Turtle looks a little bit drained to me, compared to shots where you white balanced at a certain depth through the filter.

All the three pictures I posted above were taken without the red-filter in place… so from them there’s no possibility to compare. I’d have to look for another example image taken with the red-filter…

And don’t forget of the three examples above only the first is a still-photo, the other two are screenshots from a video, which is of course recorded with much less bandwidth and resolution.

if you could do a certain test with a stationary object and compare it side-by-side we could dig more into this.

I may have the opportunity to do such a test later this year… alas, I need to be on vacation to have the appropriate wet environment…

You can find an (unpostprocessed other than cut) 1 minute sample of uw-video taken with the Xacti HD2 now at:

http://video.christian-winkel.org/sanyo_xacti_hd2_uw_sample.mp4

(Size: About 70MB)

If you’re having problems with playing, try http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Peter

Thank you for posting that.  I had rented the last non “HD” version of the Sanyo to use to see if I liked it for portability and back up in case I ever needed to use it, or just felt like being lazy during a dive or a trip

To sum it up, the results were so poor (camera performance) that I was very thankful I had not purchased it.  Part of it may have been it was set up improperly (rental) but after I mentioned it was not working properly the shop double checked everything and still had the same issue.

When the the HD2 came out I had seen some clips and it seemed that nothing had changed with what could be done.  Looking at your video however will now make me revisit the setup and may get one.

When I looked at the video it seemed to look like some places I go to then I went back and looked at the pictures and saw the Cenote.  Of course many things look the same underwater , but looks like some Mexico there - looks like more towards Cozumel on one shot and then over to the Turtle at Tortuga off of Playa maybe?  Also couple of the other shots.

As an aside, how did you find the HD2 footage held up doing post work an NLE?

Again thanks for the clip.

Drew Wohl - 29 June 2007 02:12 PM

When I looked at the video it seemed to look like some places I go to then I went back and looked at the pictures and saw the Cenote.  Of course many things look the same underwater , but looks like some Mexico there - looks like more towards Cozumel on one shot and then over to the Turtle at Tortuga off of Playa maybe?

Yes, the shots were taken at Puerto Aventuras and at the Palancar Reef off Cozumel.

As an aside, how did you find the HD2 footage held up doing post work an NLE?

While the shots were taken by a collegue, the camera is mine, and thus it wasn’t difficult to create an output file at that stage. And btw., the editing was done without recoding, cutting the .mp4 files directly.

Yes, the shots were taken at Puerto Aventuras and at the Palancar Reef off Cozumel.

Thought I recognized my favorites I love that area, both sides - Cozumel and the Coast.  Going back a couple more times this year it looks like

While the shots were taken by a collegue, the camera is mine, and thus it wasn’t difficult to create an output file at that stage. And btw., the editing was done without recoding, cutting the .mp4 files directly.

Saw that.  Did you try to tweak any corrections in post?  (White Balance etc?) Just curious to see how it held up with noise and so on.  Like I said looks real good compared to the time i used another Sanyo