Sony MHS-CM5

Ease of Use (7.00)

Ease-of-use is the cornerstone of the ultracompact camcorder. In this regard, Sony has made some major improvements to make this year’s Bloggie simpler and less intimidating than last year’s Webbie. The main improvement is a simple reduction in the number of features. Sony has figured out that consumers in this demographic don’t want a lot of scene modes and choices. That being said, there are still a lot more options than what you have on the Flip line of camcorders.

Fortunately, these options are a lot easier to access than they were on the Webbie camcorder. There is a small Menu button located within the LCD cavity. It’s clearly labeled and does exactly what you expect it to do. Unfortunately, there are two options that are only available via a joystick shortcut: self-timer and display on/off/auto. The joystick is technically labeled to indicate these options, but we think most people won’t see that. In fact, if you accidentally click up or down on the joystick, it can be disorienting when the Bloggie pops up this unwanted option.

Aside from these two features, the Bloggie is very easy to use. There are helpful tool tips to give a short explanation of features within the settings menu. Any features that do not have tool tip explanation are fairly self-explanatory. The menu display can be changed to yellow, pink, or blue. Available languages for the North American version of the Bloggie include English, French, Spanish, and Chinese.

If you need additional guidance, there are rather lengthy ‘Operating Instructions’ available. It’s probably more information that a Bloggie user would ever want to have, but for instruction manual collectors, it’s a veritable gold mine.

The main menu of the Bloggie MHS-CM5	The settings submenu has tool tips.

Auto Mode (4.50)

It should come as no surprise that the Bloggie is an auto-only camcorder. Like most ultracompact budget cams, the CM5 does not have manual controls; it’s 100% cruise control for Bloggie fans.

Unfortunately, these automatic adjustments are not always responsive or effective. Auto exposure was often unnecessarily slow, especially when going from a particularly bright environment to darker areas. The usual troubles with indoor lighting cropped up with the auto white balance, but the camcorder fared considerably better than the Kodak Zx3 and Zi8.

Of all the automatic image adjustments, focus was the most troubling. At times, we would shoot footage only to find later that half the frame was out of focus. This was reminiscent of the troubles we had with the JVC Picsio—only that was a lens problem and not a flaw in the autofocus. We’re not really sure which problem is worse: the inconsistent focus of the Bloggie or the Zi8’s complete lack of focus for anything between 6 inches and 6 feet away. Probably the latter.

Auto Controls

Focus – There is no manual focus option on the Bloggie. Instead, you’ll have to let the autofocus do its job. On most of the competition, this means just pointing at your subject and enjoying the ride, since most ultracompacts have a fixed focal length. The Bloggie, which should have an advantage with its moving lens elements, is actually terrible at focusing. The problem is described above in the auto mode section.

Exposure – The Bloggie MHS-CM5 does not have an option for manual exposure control. As is true with most ultracompacts, you’re stuck with the automatic exposure adjustment. Fortunately, the auto exposure works fine, even if it’s sometimes painfully slow.