Sony Bloggie Touch MHS-TS10 Camcorder Review

Manual Focus

Manual Exposure

Miscellaneous Controls

Sony tried hard to keep things simple on the Bloggie Touch, as there are no extra manual controls on the camcorder.

Auto Controls

Focus - There's no manual focus adjustment option on the Bloggie Touch, but the camcorder does have a slight autofocus mechanism. Considering that most ultracompact models feature fixed lenses, the fact that the Bloggie Touch offers a small amount of autofocus is rather unique.

Exposure - The Bloggie Touch is a basic ultracompact camcorder, so it doesn't even have a manual exposure adjustment option.

Aperture - The Bloggie Touch has no manual aperture options either and the lens has a widest aperture setting of f/2.8.

Shutter Speed - Shutter speed is fully automated on the Bloggie Touch. According to Sony, the camcorder has a range of shutter speeds from 1/30 to 1/4000 of a second.

White Balance - Like aperture and shutter speed, the Bloggie Touch has a fully automated white balance system—with no manual options or presets.

Gain - Gain control is fully automated on the Bloggie Touch.

Color & Image Controls - There's no special color or image controls on the Bloggie Touch. All you can really adjust is the record mode and the photo size.

Audio Controls

The Bloggie Touch has so little in the way of audio features that we almost considered eliminating this section of our review. Since it is here, we should probably talk about the camcorder's built in microphone, which is stupidly located on the right side of the camcorder(or top, depending how you hold it) . We hate this mic position because you can easily cover or rub it with your finger if you aren't paying attention. Not that this matters all that much—the Bloggie Touch records fairly lousy mono audio even if the mic is completely unobstructed.

Editing

Like most ultracompact camcorders, the Bloggie Touch ships with built-in software that you can install by connecting the camcorder directly to a computer. Sony says this built-in "Bloggie Software" will be compatible with Macs, but as of November 2010, the company has yet to release an update to make the software Mac-compatible.

The Bloggie Software loaded on the Bloggie Touch is different than what you get on Sony's previous generation of Bloggie camcorders, but there are some similarities. The most exciting addition is a new Personal Space feature. Personal Space is a Sony-owned website where you can store your videos and photos and share them with friends. Registering on the site is free and it comes with 1GB of "personal space" for you to store your content (hence the name). For an overview of the software that ships with this and other camcorders, see our article: Video Editing Software For Your CamcorderSony-Included-Software.htm.