Sony MHS-CM5

Color (4.31)

The Bloggie MHS-CM5 did not perform well in our bright light color testing. Compared to most of the competition, the Bloggie was very inaccurate in its rendering of pretty much every hue. For these results, you can thank the mediocre automatic white balance, which simply couldn’t handle ordinary halogen lighting. In outdoor conditions, the Bloggie fares better. Unfortunately, a lot of consumers need to record indoor events. More on how we test color.

Color Accuracy Performance
	Color Error Map
	The map on the left is a diagram of the color error. The length and direction of each line indicates how the camera processed each particular color while capturing video. The Sony MHS-CM5 produced a color error of 8.13 and a saturation level of 116.9% in our bright light color testing.

In the color error chart above, you can see how the Bloggie skewed many of the colors on our Chroma DuMonde chart. Yellow and orange hues were especially inaccurate. In the image capture from our train footage (below), you can see that the colors aren’t particularly vibrant, except for the oversaturated reds. And since there aren’t any additional color modes (like soft skin), any color adjustment tools (like saturation), or even a manual white balance, you’re stuck with whatever the Bloggie gives you.

Auto 100% Crop

The image above might not look that bad, but compare the Bloggie’s performance to that of these three competing models:

Sony MHS-CM5 Color Comparisons
Sony MHS-CM5
Sony MHS-CM1 Sanyo VPC-CG10 Pure Digital Flip UltraHD More...

The Flip UltraHD had similar problems with the auto white balance, only colors were skewed cool instead of warm. The Sony Webbie MHS-CM1 (the 2009 predecessor to the Bloggie), had surprisingly good auto white balance, but was very washed out. What’s the source of that gorgeous crop in the lower-left? That’s the Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10. Admittedly, the CG10 has a manual white balance, which helped that camcorder produce very accurate colors. However, the CG10 is also just an all-around better performer than any of these budget cams. It’s also about the same price. The downside? The CG10 is not nearly as easy to use.

Close-Up Color Comparisons				Expand
	Ideal	Sony MHS-CM5	Sony MHS-CM1	Sanyo VPC-CG10	Pure Digital Flip UltraHD
Red
Green
Blue
Light Skin
Dark Skin

Low Light Color (7.50)

The low light color results are about average for the Bloggie. The 4.85 color error is a slight improvement over the results boasted by last year’s MHS-CM1. It also fared better in low light than in bright light. The horrible white balance issues in bright light were all but absent when we dimmed the lights. More on how we test low light color.

Low Light Color Accuracy Performance
	Color Error Map
	The map on the left is a diagram of the color error. The length and direction of each line indicates how the camera processed each particular color while capturing video. The Sony MHS-CM5 produced a color error of and a saturation level of in our bright light color testing.

In the color error map above, you can see that the low light performance rendered inaccurate purples and greens, but the oranges and yellows are more accurate than they were in bright light.

You can see in the crops below that the CM5 does appear darker at 60 lux than the competition. The colors, however, are bold and accurate—though not quite as nice to look at as the colors produced by the Sanyo VPC-CG10.

Noise (9.09)

The bright light noise performance of the Bloggie CM5 is just below average for a camcorder of its class. Many budget camcorders are able to do well in this test, but it usually comes at a price: the lower resolution, the more likely it is that noise is washed out. The CM5 manages to have both impressive sharpness and impressive clarity: the noise percentage was only 0.6625%. More on how we test noise.

Sony MHS-CM5 Noise Comparisons
Sony MHS-CM5 100% Crop	Sony MHS-CM1 100% Crop Sanyo VPC-CG10 100% Crop Pure Digital Flip UltraHD 100% Crop More...

The crops above demonstrate the variation in noise that you see on the different models. The two Sony camcorders definitely have a sheen of fine noise that isn’t present on the CG10 or the Flip UltraHD. However, the Sony cams are also sharper than either competing model—you can really see the incredible detail of the Bloggie in its vertical trumpet. The Flip doesn’t have great sharpness and it also has some discoloration that you don’t get in the other models.