Sony bloggie PM5K camera

Shooting for the web the easy way

Product

Sony bloggie PM5K camera

Promise

Sony enter the compact multimedia craze

Performance

It’s been a few years now since the advent of cameras such as the Flip: small, light tablets that shoot HD video and upload direct to the web through a built-in USB. They’ve gone down really well with the travelling and sports user, so it was only a matter of time until the big boys moved in too. The bloggie PM5K is Sony’s latest release: on sale this February, they’ve poured all their camera expertise into a market-leading version.

It shoots in full HD, into MP4 format, and doubles up as a 5 megapixel stills camera too. Where many competitors have gone for a screen that unfolds and points back to you for self-portraits, the bloggie has instead opted to swivel the lens of the camera: it’s moveable through 270 degrees so you can set up shots perfectly.

One clever add-on – not included in the basic pack – is a neat 360-degree panoramic lens that clips on to shoot all round you at once. On upload, the shot ‘unfolds’ to make a tremendous image of everything in sight.

All the software you need to upload images is embedded on the camera itself, meaning that all you need to do is unfold the built-in USB plug and stick it in to any computer to play around with your shots and video. It’s compatible with Macs as well as PCs, and you can also review shots with the 6cm LCD screen too.

The PMC5K shoots video at 1280x720/60p, or 1920x1080/30p: it also feature SteadyShot image stabilization, but be aware that it’s only available when shooting in the 720p resolution with 30fp.

Verdict

A great camera to take on travels that’s built with the top spec you’d expect from the Sony brand. The camera has no onboard memory, relying on SD or Memory Stick to store data instead, but some would see that as an advantage. If you’re a blogging globetrotter, this is exactly what you need.