Sanyo Xacti VPC-C6 Review

The C6's viewfinder display -   In the upper left are the still image settings - 6Megapixel, High quality, 651 pictures available. In the upper right are the motion video settings - TV-SHQ is 640x480 @ 30fps at the highest quality bit rate, we can record 1 hour 20 minutes and 6 seconds of action. The "hand" icon indicates that the image stabilizer is enabled in Mode A. Whenever the zoom is changed an onscreen gauge is shown for a few seconds.

When you half-press the still image shutter to achieve the focus and exposure lock, the AF target marks will display and show what area it is focusing on. You will notice that the viewfinder shows MORE of the scene than it did in the first frame - this is due to the Image Stabilizer being in Mode A. The first frame shows the actual capture area whereas the half-pressed display shows it all. The aperture and shutter speed values will also be shown in the lower left corner.

If the image stabilizer is in Mode B as shown here, there is an inner frame border displayed. Only the area inside the inner frame will be captured.

The 3-megapixel (3M) mode is set for portrait (vertical) orientation, the outside frame is greyed-out in live mode, when the shutter is half-pressed the capture area is much more noticeable.

Scene modes: AUTO (default - camera automatically selects the scene mode), Sports (faster shutter speeds), Portrait (optimized for "people" pictures with blurred background), Landscape (infinity focus), Night View (flash illuminate close subject but also capture background night scenery), Fireworks (fireworks at night) or Lamp (low light non-flash photography).

The Lamp Scene mode allows you to use faster shutter speeds for flash-less photography in low light. The ISO sensitivity can be automatically boosted as high as 3600. The image size is automatically lowered to 0.3M in this mode.

When you have Voice Recording mode selected the microphone icon is shown in the upper right corner and the amount of available recording time is shown below it. You press the movie mode shutter button to start/stop recording. The maximum voice recording time for one session is 15 hours.

Record Menu options:

Video Clip - Size/quality for movie capture (see below) or Audio recording mode

Photo Resolution - Size/quality for still image capture:

10M (interpolated), 6M-H (low compression), 6M-S (high compression)
3M Portrait (vertical orientation), 2M, 0.3M

Scene Select - Auto, Sports, Portrait, Landscape, Night View, Fireworks, Lamp

Filters - Cosmetic (enhance skin tones), B&W, Sepia

Flash - Auto, Forced, Off

Self-timer - 10 sec., 2 sec., or Off

Image Stabilizer - Mode A (Video mode), Mode B (Photo mode), Off

Focus Range - Total, Standard, Manual or Super Macro

Focus Area - 5-point (default) or Spot (center only)

Light Measuring - Multi-section, Center-weighted, Spot

ISO Sensitivity - Auto (50-400 stills / 450-3600 video), 50 (450 in video), 100 (900 in video), 200 (1800 in video), 400 (3600 in video)

White Balance - Auto, Sunny, Cloudy, Fluorescent, Incandescent or Manual

The default "Total" focus mode covers normal and macro from 4 inches (10cm) to infinity in Wide angle and 31.5 inches (80cm) to infinity in Telephoto. The Super Macro mode covers from 0.39 to 31.5 inches (1cm to 80cm) and the lens is fixed in Wide only.

Pressing the SET button lets you quickly review or delete the last still image or movie clip that was captured without leaving REC mode.

You can record high quality MPEG-4 encoded motion video with 48kHz, 16-bit, 2-channel (AAC compression) stereo sound. The optical zoom can be used during recording. There is a Digital Image Stabilizer, a Wind Noise Reduction filter and a Flicker Reduction filter (helps eliminate the flicker effect from fluorescent and vapor lights.) There are five different movie size/quality settings you can select from:

• 640 x 480 (SHQ 30fps, 3Mbps bit rate)
  
• 640 x 480 (HQ 30fps, 2Mbps bit rate)
  
• 320 x 240 (S 30fps, 640kbps bit rate)
  
• 320 x 240 (HQ 15fps, 384kbps bit rate)
  
• 176 x 144 (15fps, 256kbps bit rate)

Storage Capacities (approx.)

• The maximum continuous shooting time at TV-S is 5 hours 30 minutes. The maximum continuous shooting time at Web-HQ and Web-S is 7 hours.
• Up to 13 hours of continuous audio recording is possible