Sanyo VPC-J1 Xacti Mini-Review

Sanyo VPC-J1 Xacti: The Little Camera That Could

Updated Mar 16, 2004 (added more samples)

I like this little camera. It's fairly small compared to the current crop, is compact and portable and it comes with a belt pouch which makes it easy to carry around at parties (though I wish it were just a bit thinner).

Size comparison between the VPC-J1 and a Panasonic GU87 cellphone (place the mouse pointer over the image to see a different view). The camera looks about the same size as the phone, in real life it feels much bulkier though.

Its 2.8x zoom lens fits completely inside the camera body (similar to the Minolta Dimage X and Sony T1) which makes for very fast startup times, as you don't need to wait for the camera to extend its lens to operating position like regular zooms do. This also helps prevent damaging the lens since there are no external moving parts that can break.

The lens is protected by a metal shutter-like cover which quickly slides inside the body with a snap when switching to picture-taking modes (move the mouse pointer over the image to see it with the shutter closed).

The 3.2 Mp sensor should allow for very good prints up to 5x7 at 300dpi and decent ones up to 8x10 at 200dpi. The camera has a 6Mp interpolated mode which I guess is useful for printing better 8x10 photos at 300dpi or in lieu of RAW or TIFF modes which this camera is lacking.

Base ISO is 50, available sensitivities range from 50 to 400. There is also a special "lamp" mode (as well as the movie modes) that reduces resolution to 640x480 but in turn quadruples the ISO (up to 1600). This mode coupled with up to 4 second exposure brings more detail to the picture than the eye can see in almost total darkness, but the image is very noisy, as expected for this sensor size.

Hint: in picture view mode (or movie still mode) pushing the MENU button for a couple seconds brings up a screen with data about the image (exposure settings, resolution, file size etc). In picture taking mode same thing will show a summary of the current camera settings.

The 1.6" LCD produces a live full-speed view under normal light conditions, the view gets a bit choppy in very low light but quite usable (where most other cameras just go blank). The LCD can be easily scratched (it is raised) so I stuck a piece of Scotch tape over it, nicely cut around the edges so it can't peel off.

The VPC-J1 uses a proprietary Li-Ion battery (comes with a charger but no A/C adapter that can be connected directly to the camera). Battery life is pretty good for such a small battery, even when using the flash. The battery and SD card slot are protected by a flip cover shown in the picture below.

Flash photography: I am quite happy with how flash photos came out in a club setting. Very few were out of focus (not sure if due to camera or operator, given the context), and the camera did a good job of properly exposing the vast majority of them. No problem framing with the LCD in low light, the view is displayed with decent brightness and in full color (albeit not full motion, but which camera has that in low light?).

The camera seems to prefer ISO 100, 1/30 shutter and f/2.8 in flash mode if it can help it. I believe that it might also be varying the flash power with focused distance, as pictures came out fine (no overblown highlights, fairly well-distributed histogram) with subjects from 20in to 8-9ft despite having used the exact same exposure settings. The flash is very flexible in close-ups as well, as you can see in the image below.

10" Flash-only shot of a Kinder Surprise toy (1/30s, f/6.8, ISO 100). You can tell the camera was really close, the shadows are projected at visibly different angles.

The VPC-J1 lacks aperture or shutter priority modes; I didn't consider this a problem given my intended use (casual photos), but I found that I really wanted 1/60 in flash mode, as at 1/30 with some ambient light, you will often get blurred backgrounds that may even smear into the subject's image if the camera is handheld or the subject was moving. TODO: test to see what kind of flash sync it uses.

The VPC-J1 has excellent movie support, offering no less than 8 (eight) movie modes with mono audio, with the highest quality mode rivaling TV video, with 640x480 @ 30 frames/second. The Photo-JPEG codec produces smooth images (not blocky like MPEG).

You can enable optical zoom during movie recording but use it only if you don't care about the motor noise, which will be heard pretty loud on playback.

In-camera playback can be done forwards or backwards, at normal, fast speed or frame-by-frame. Stills from the movie can be saved as regular pictures.

640x480 movie still (1/677s, f/6.8, ISO 200). Click here to download the full video file (15Mb, you need Quicktime 5). Nothing interesting, just 12 seconds in an intersection. If the video looks choppy your computer is too slow.
Here is what gmplayer has to say about the video file:

Playing vclp0011.mov
QuickTime/MOV file format detected.
--------------
MOV track #0: 12 chunks, 360 samples
Image size: 640 x 480 (24 bpp)
Display size: 640 x 480
Fourcc: jpeg  Codec: 'Photo - JPEG'
--------------
MOV track #1: 12 chunks, 0 samples
Audio bits: 8  chans: 1  rate: 7875
Fourcc: raw
--------------
MOV: longest streams: A: #1 (12 samples)  V: #0 (360 samples)
==========================================================================
Trying to force audio codec driver family qtaudio ...
Opening audio decoder: [pcm] Uncompressed PCM audio decoder
AUDIO: 7875 Hz, 1 ch, 8 bit (0x8), ratio: 7875->7875 (63.0 kbit)
Selected audio codec: [pcm] afm:pcm (Uncompressed PCM)
==========================================================================
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffmjpeg] vfm:ffmpeg (FFmpeg MJPEG decoder)
==========================================================================

In movie mode, as in "lamp" picture mode, the camera switches to the quadrupled ISO range (200-1600), I believe by combining each four adjacent pixels, each "dot" at 640x480 registers more light and allows noise levels equivalent to ISO 50 - 400 in picture mode.

Night shot samples, from left to right:
"Lamp" mode, ISO 1600, 4s, f/2.8.
Basic "Night" mode, ISO 400, 2s, f/2.8 - what the (unadapted) naked eye sees.
Expert mode, ISO 400, 1/2s, f/2.8.
Last two were scaled down to match the "lamp" mode's resolution of 640x480.

The macro mode of the VPC-J1 is simply awesome. You can get as as close as 1/4" with zoom at the wide setting; you can actually place the camera on a monitor to get a picture of the pixels behind the glass. Without manual focus and with substantially reduced depth of field, sometimes it takes some effort convincing the camera to focus on what you want, when other things distract it. Focusing in macro mode is slower and audibly different than normal mode, you can hear and feel the internal stepper motors as the lens scans the entire focal range for the best contrast image.

The focused field of view in "Super Macro" mode is about 15mm (1/4") wide, which indicates a maximum resolution of just above 4200dpi. The only difficulty that remains is getting light onto the subject when the camera is so close to it. You can use the zoom to some extent to be able to back up the camera a few more inches. TODO: test how zoom works in macro mode.

Here is a composite in "Super Macro" mode (carpet - 1/2, f/2.9, ISO 113). There are a few more full-size macro samples in the samples section.

Image Samples
These are a few samples so you can judge the image quality for yourself. Unless mentioned otherwise, the images below are full-size pictures with a resolution of 2048 x 1536, normal jpeg compression (from normal/fine/superfine options), without any post-processing. The size is around 600Kb. Note that these images do not fit a standard monitor. If your browser shows the entire image it probably scaled it down and you're not looking at the real quality, try clicking on it again to get the real size. TODO: add a 6Mp sample

Things missing from this camera:
- No TIFF output (let alone RAW!). Only JPEG. It does have an interpolated 6Mp mode which can store a bit more information than the highest quality JPEG at 3Mp
- No manual setting of shutter or aperture.
- No image histogram capability.

Due to the prism and lens design, the camera will produce vertical blueish stripes when bright lights are visible in the picture. There is no fix for this other than not shooting against bright lights. TODO: add sample

This camera does produce purple fringe easily (PF is a chromatic aberration affecting most consumer digicams, usually found in high-contrast areas of the picture). You can see it in the samples above, it is more pronounced when further from the center of the picture.

Sanyo Xacti VPC-J1 specifications:

Image Sensor:	1/2.7" progressive scan 3.34 Megapixel CCD
Lens:	37 - 104mm (35mm equivalent) optical zoom f/2.8 - f/3.9 autofocus lens inner zoom lens
Image Sizes:	2880 x 2160 (6 Mp, interpolated) 2048 x 1536 (native) 1600 x 1200 640 x 480
Image Format:	Pictures: JPEG (only), quality normal, fine, super fine Movies: Quicktime/MOV Photo-JPEG
ISO:	Pictures: 50, 100, 200, 400, auto Movies, "lamp" picture mode: 200, 400, 800, 1600, auto ("lamp" mode is auto only)
Movie Modes:	640 x 480 @ 30 fps / 15 fps, normal (30 fps requires a fast card) 320 x 240 @ 30 fps / 15 fps, normal/fine 160 x 120 @ 30 fps / 15 fps, normal Movie length is limited only by card size.
Exposure:	center-weighted, multi, spot.
Exp.Comp.	-1.8 to +1.8 in 0.3 EV steps
Focus Modes:	super macro, 1m, 2.5m, infinity, auto
Shutter:	auto/manual 1/2000 to 1/2s up to 2s and 4s in "night" and "lamp" auto modes, respectively usually 1/30 with flash
Display:	1.6" LCD, live view (no lag!)
Card Type:	SD/MMC
Dimensions:	3.9" x 2.2" x 1.2" WxHxD
Battery:	Proprietary, Li-Ion Find Batteries
Price:	Last price was $149, at B&H Photo, no longer available as of Oct 2004.

The camera has a few things you will feel the urge to disable immediately: various sounds with flashing lights and a talking mode which confirms your menu selections. Apparently Sanyo is very proud of this feature but I found it quite annoying as soon as the novelty wore off. There is also a pretty useless viewfinder, it's like looking through a keyhole.

Oh, and it can also function as a webcam according to the manual.

When in PC-link mode, the camera works as a standard USB (1.1) storage device, which is directly accessible from Linux using the usb-storage kernel module, and from Windows 98 SE and above without any additional drivers. I don't know of Linux drivers for the webcam mode.