AgfaPhoto Eclipse Explorer takes underwater HD videos

RedDot Philippines sent me several digital cameras several weeks ago when they were preparing my Visa for the China trip. One that caught my attention was the underwater video recorder from AgfaPhoto.

The videocam is actually out in the market for some months now (I think as early as April when they did the launch event that I wasn’t able to attend). If you’re familiar with the Flip HD, then this is the cheaper counterpart. And, the best thing about it is that it can record underwater (up to 15 feet).

Our visit to Donguan AOF factory showed us how this digicam is made, especially the lenses. For under Php6k, you get a dedicated video recorder that can take stills of up to 5MP.

It’s got a decent f/2.8 aperture and records videos up to 1080p full HD. Aside from that, there’s nothing much to it — 4x digital zoom, an ISO range of 100 to 800 (not good for low-light situation) and a 950mAh battery.

There’s no internal storage on this one so you’ll need to get a separate SD card. Charging and data transfer is done via a built-in USB plug and you can view videos to an external display via the HDMI port.

The closest product I can think of that’s similar to this is the 14MP Sanyo Exacti VPC-CA102YL but that one is only good for up to 10feet and retails for $350PHP 20,540INR 29,662EUR 333CNY 2,547.

I’m eager to try this one underwater but have not had the chance yet (maybe this week-end during our surfing trip to La Union). Water-proof, shock-proof, full HD video for Php5,995USD 102INR 8,660EUR 97CNY 744? Not bad.

Note: Will update once I get those HD videos.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

14 Comments

benchmark says:

13 years ago

i hope the review of this product is good :) I am planning to buy myself a camera…still on a planning and searching stage :)
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nameless says:

13 years ago

Wala bang giveaway jan? This one is ok, rugged sya at pwedeng pang mga outdoor adventures!
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Iyan Sommerset says:

13 years ago

Been looking at this as a birthday gift from my mom for a few months now. :P Great for the price, my only complaint is that the battery is non-removeable. Other than that, stick a class 10 32gb SDHC in and great to go, especially since I take more video than stills anyway. Besides, it had me at 1080p. :P

Question on the price though…isn’t this one 5k and the GE DV1 the 6k one?
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jonaflormicfren says:

13 years ago

Nice, I like it.
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Edwin C says:

13 years ago

Underwater pala, ha. That means, no girl in bikini is safe from this. Masubukan nga.
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mike says:

13 years ago

compared with the flip,.the battery is fixed and lasts only up to 3 hours. and poor in.lowlight. Flip.takes excellent videos at night.

This is nothing but hidden crap. Looks good on the outside, crap and useless inside.
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RyanRey says:

13 years ago

This one has the same ID and price as with the GE DV-1. I just bought the GE just last month at Western Marketing and so far I am enjoying it especially going under water to see if my freestyle and dolphin kick is improving and it takes crystal clear HD videos. My tip is to set it at 720p so that the battery will last for a day. If you set it at full HD then it will just last only for a couple of hours. I think this is an OEM device bought both by GE and Agfa.

Here is the link of my GE DV-1:
http://www.general-imaging.com/us/Digital-Camera.aspx?id=1685
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mikey day says:

13 years ago

this gadget was on Groupon Philippines and sold out! wow
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riri says:

13 years ago

anyone know where this is sold?
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Jam says:

13 years ago

thanks for the info on this one. I’ve been searching in the market for an outdoor cam at a thrifty price and I’ve coiled down my search to two- The Eclipse Explorer and The GE DV-1. I guess battery life would just be the argument between the two as basically all features coincide. Cheers.
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alvin joves says:

13 years ago

when can we buy? where are the stores here in manila?
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jeng says:

13 years ago

I bought mine in Robinsons Pioneer. This camera is a great bargain! full HD video with a pretty decent still photo of 5MP at a price of 6k.
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Iyan Sommerset says:

13 years ago

Just received this for my 2010 holiday present from my mom. So far, very happy with it. Wish it had more options, but it seems to do very well with what it has. I would’ve preferred if it saved videos to AVI or RAW, but was pleasantly surprised that the h.264-encoded MOV files it stores video as are pretty small for high-resolution clips.

1080p is nice and all but I’ve decided to stick with 720p at 60fps – another nice feature I didn’t expect. I was expecting everything to be at 24-30fps so a 60fps option for video recording was great to see.

Still photos are also pretty decent – I’ve never been in a situation where I would have wanted/needed anything above 5mp anyway. One pet peeve of mine though is that still photos are taken at the aspect ratio of the video setting – so if you want to take 4:3 photos (full 5mp), you have to set the video recording to one of the 4:3 options (640×480 or 1440×1080). Switching between 16:9 video and 4:3 photos can be a hassle.

Still, solid camera.
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