Waterproof Digital Camcorders

The waterproof digital camcorder is becoming increasingly popular with the outdoor enthusiast wanting to capture their adventures.

Sanyo was the first to release a waterproof camcorder in 2007 it was the Sanyo Xacti DMX-CA65. The recording medium was an SD Memory card which meant the camcorder was small and light, it was capable of taking both still pictures as well as video.

The Xacti is promoted to entice users to take their camcorder when surfing, snorkeling, or anywhere where there maybe water. It is waterproof up to a depth of 1.5 meters for 60 minutes at a time. It records to MPEG-4 AVC/H2.264 format allowing easy editing on users computers and still images were captured at 6.0 megapixels.

The latest Xacti the DMX-CA9 and DMX-WH1 digital camcorders use a SD Memory card or SDHC Memory Card up to 32G. The DMX-CA9 can withstand being submersed to a depth of 1.5 meters whereas the DMX-WH1 can go to 3 meters and has a 30X optical zoom. Used as a digital camera, the DMX-CA9 still shots are captured at 9 megapixels. To read their specifications click here

User ratings and comments about the Sanyo waterproof camcorders, excluding the DMX-CA9 and DMX-WH1, as they were not released as of writing this article, are generally very high. We did find however that little things like the batteries being able to be inserted incorrectly, only to be discovered when you went to record something and short battery life was noted on a couple of occasions.

There are other players in the Waterproof camcorder market notably Panasonic who are receiving good reviews for the SDR-SW20 and they are about to release the SDR-SW21Shock and Waterproof camcorder, Panasonic claim it is waterproof to 2 meters, can withstand a 1.2 meter drop, is dust proof and starts within 0.6 seconds of opening the LCD.