Hold Your Breath

Sanyo's Xacti CA65 can take video and still photos above and below the water. Lucy Bennett (15) took it to Waiheke Island for a thorough dunking

ACTV8 and Sanyo have one of these little beauties to be won - See our competitions page for details.

Personally, I find there's one major flaw when it comes to underwater photography - opening my eyes under the water. Even when I've managed this uncomfortable feat, the resulting photos are so hideous I'd rather no one saw them, which obviously defeats the point of photography altogether. The Sanyo Xacti CA65 makes this problem slightly worse, as it's a little slow. The capture button is pressed and, somewhere down the line, the photo is taken. But there's no guarantee this will happen while your subject is posing.

I took the camera to Auckland's Waiheke Island for a test-run. The result: numerous photographs of people in their togs, talking with their eyes closed. Not so hot. The other problem with the CA65 is its lack of speed. So, when I was taking one of the hideous underwater photos mentioned above, the people would often run out of breath before the picture had been taken. This resulted in more than a few photos of belly buttons.

However, the camera has some good points, too. The CA65 is really cool to look at. Ever since iPods came on the scene, it seems the world is obsessed with the colour white. This is good, as it makes gadgets look very fresh, top notch and pleasantly unisex, too.

The CA65 is very easy to operate. There are only a few buttons, some of which are neatly, and stealthily, hidden under the fold-out widescreen. Another issue with the camera is its video-record mode. I love the idea of filming underwater. It's a bit like being in The Little Mermaid, except in real life and starring myself. However, the CA65 doesn't have a lot of battery power. It runs on its own rechargeable battery - and comes with a charger - yet, obviously, you can't charge batteries on the beach or at the pool. So you only have a small amount of filming time before the juice runs out. Also, the camera is automatically set to come on in video mode. This means that as soon as you switch to video it begins to record! As a result, I ended up with far too many videos of the sand, with the sound of my voice saying: "Why is it recording?"

Despite this, the CA65 was a lot of fun to muck around with - and dunk and splash. It is also amazingly durable. It nearly got lost in the waves a few times, and I hate to think what would have happened if it had been swept towards the rocks.

While the Sanyo Xacti is not the best camera on the market, it would definitely be a good buy for anyone who does a lot of snorkelling, surfing or diving. However, although it has a lot of features, none of them jump out enough to take this camera from the ordinary to the extraordinary. I would give the Sanyo Xacti CA65 a solid three stars out of five.

The Sanyo Xacti CA65 is available exclusively from The Warehouse: RRP$699 See. www.sanyo.co.nz for more details