New Sony Digital Vlog Camera ZV-1 (Vlogging camera and Content Creation)

What's up guys, we've got here the brand new Sony ZV-1 or ZV-1, depending on where you're from. This is the brand new compact camera from Sony, which is made for vlogging. This is completely targeted towards vloggers. I also have here the Sony shooting grip with a wireless remote commander. I'm not even going to, GP... Yeah, that's too much of a long name. But anyway, this is sold separately.

Let's get these unboxed, lookat some of the key features and then we'll go out do lots of tests. I'll give you my thoughts. I'll try to leave sometimestamps down below. So as you can see fromall of the branding, it's all about vlogging. Let's have a look at the camera. Some of the key features here in the box. So you've got 4k HDR, it's aone-inch Exmor RS CMOS sensor which has a 20.1 megapixel resolution, we've got a 24 to 70 focal length with an F1.8 to 2.8 aperture. So that is quite a wideaperture, should give you some nice depth of field. Face detection autofocuswith 315AF points. Real-time Eye AF, now thisis really good autofocus which tracks your eyes, I'm not sure how well it will do with me because I'm always wearing sunglasses. Face appeal, which prioritizes your face over the background. Focus which you don't really need to know about aperture settingsand things like that. You can just put that on ifyou want a blurry background. 

That's interesting. Clear voice recording andthere is a microphone jack. Amazing, so that way youcan plug in an external mic if you want to. So here's everything thatyou get inside the box. There's of course the camera itself, we've got some people work, there's an NP-BX1 type battery. Now as far as I'm aware, this is the same battery that's used on a lot of the other RX 100 models. So if you do have one of those, then you're going to be able to use those batteries along with this. Then we've got this little Windjammer which is going to connectonto the hot shoe, and it's going to actuallycover the mic that's on this and that should heavilyreduce any sort of wind noise. And here is the camera. So size wise, it does lookquite similar to the RX 100 line but this is not thecontinuation of the RX100 line. 

This is something completely different because there are some big changes. The first of which is the display. It's a full, swivel out rotating display and it comes out to theside, not the top, finally. (intense music) Now, having the displaycoming up to the side is so much more convenient, it just frees up thatspace here on the top. So now you know you canhave this Windjammer without it affecting the display, it's going to be completelyover to the side. And also if you want to shoot vertically which is something that a lotof people are doing these days with the likes of TikTok, IG stories, so this is actually going tomake it a lot more practical having the display pop up onto the side rather than on the top. Taking a quick look around, you can see some of the buttons on here, there is that dedicated bokeh mode which is the C1 switch. We've got the hot shoe here over on the left and then we'vegot the main mic area here. So for instance, if we did want to put on this little Windjammer accessory, that's going to now cover that mic and it's going to preventall of that wind noise which is generally quite abit of problem here in the UK. 

Now, we've got a fewbuttons and dials here. I'm not going to go throughevery single one of these. What I do notice is this thumb grip as well as this grip here at the front. So this is going tomake this easier to hold if you're not using it with a tripod or a gorilla pod or whatever it is. That's really nice touch. Now, on the right hand side,we've got all the ports. So as mentioned, we do have a mic in. So you're going to be able to connect an external mic onto here, which is great. There's a micro HDMI port here,as well as a micro USB port. I was really hoping for USBtype C, I mean, still micro USB. Yeah, that's somethingthat I would have liked. I would have liked tohave seen USB type C. There's a part here for your lanyard. We've got the battery compartment as well as the full size SDcard slot here at the bottom. And there is obviously the 1/4 inch mount if you want to put thisonto a tripod or something. And speaking of tripod or something, we've got the shooting grip. So let's also check this out. This is sold separately, butit is supposed to be something that goes very nicely along with the ZV-1. So you get the actual grip itself and a case for it as well as a battery. So this is a CR2032 battery, and we can easily connectthis on to the ZV-1 so it gives us a proper grip for vlogging. Recording yourself also gives some more distance betweenthe camera and yourself if you want to get a bitmore of the background into the shots. Very simple and self explanatory. It also has some legs. So if you did want tomount this somewhere, and then you know maybeyou get a time lapse or something, Casey Neistat style, then you can just go ahead and drop this somewhere, and that's going to bequite useful as well. Then once you've pairedthe grip with the camera, you can use some of these buttons. It's just going to makeit a little bit easier. So you've got a Photo button, you got a Movie button. There's the zoom buttonshere as well as a C1 and a lock switch. 

So, you know, if you are vlogging and you want to start recording, you're not going to haveto reach over each time, you can just press theRecord Movie button. Right now that this is all set up, let's go ahead and take it outside and give it a proper test. Right, so now we're outdoors,and it's so so windy. Currently using the standard mic that's on the camera,nothing, no attachments. And this is what the sound quality is like when there's a lot of wind. But of course we do havethis little windshield that we can connect on to the hot shoe. And now let's see what the, let's hear what the audiois going to be like. There's still a lot of wind. Wow, that's a lot of wind. (wind whirling) But let me know what youthink of the difference with the windshield.

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 I'm going to leave this on for the most part of this video. (wind whirling) Now, one of the things I wantto try is the bokeh mode. So I want to just tap that button and now should get more of a blurry background. Of course distance also has a part to play when you want more of ashallow depth of field so we do have a decent amount of distance here in the background. (wind whirling) I don't know what's going on there, seems to be some beef. (birds chirping) (wind whirling) Right, what I've done nowis I've got the boke mode on but I've actually switchedon the built in ND filter because it is a very, very bright day. There's a lot of sunlight. So in order to be able toget that open wide aperture, you'd have to increase the shutter speed quite significantly, but right now, the shutter speed is not too high. This way we should be gettinga nice blurry background. Now, we do have steady shot, so right now it is not switched on. It's going to walk down this pathway.

 Now we do have steady shot on. This is standard steady shot. And now we are on active steady shot. I mean I can already see that the footage looks very, very stable. Right back in the car now,it's so so windy today. Probably a good time to test the audio, but a bad time to test anything else because like, oh, my eyes are watering, my ears are hurting, it's crazy. But anyway, I thoughtwe'd talk a little bit about the autofocus. So we do have the all eye autofocus. Now obviously I've beenwearing sunglasses, but from what I can see, it's actually been doing apretty good job regardless. However, if I do take my sunglasses off, then I can see a square that's on my eye. So if I do move around, it'sactually tracking the eye. Now this works with humans and animals. 

Now I tend to wear sunglasses. The reason being is because thescreen is off onto the side, even if it was above, then I'd be looking atthe screen when talking. And this is one of the veryclassic Casey Neistat hacks where if you've got sunglasseson and you're vlogging, then that way, you don'tnecessarily, you know, kind of lose that connection with your audience and you're not kind ofoff looking to the side. But as mentioned, the autofocusdoes seem to be pretty good because it's still gota square around my face is still recognizingthat this is the face. So although it might not bethe precise or layout of focus that you've got when you know, actually it's still picking up.

 It is picking up my eyeeven through my sunglasses. So that's pretty impressive. So, yeah, the autofocus,as far as I can see, it looks really really good. You can film in S-Log2 soyou can record like this and then you can grade thefootage after the fact. So that's a really nice option to have. Although it was prettyburied within the settings, I think it's picture profile seven, which I had to follow YouTube'stool to actually find. So I wish it was a littlebit easier to access. But nevertheless, it is here. Right, so now we are indoorsin controlled lighting, there's a few thingsthat I wanted to test. So right now I am in manual, I am controlling the shutter speed because the lighting is notgoing to be changing here. We don't have any stabilizationon so we do have a bit of a wider angle of view. And the first thing I wanted to test was the external mic capability. 

So right now we are recordingwith the standard mic. There is no windshield onand I'm going to now plug in the rode, wireless rode micsets up that I do have here with a smartLav+ I think it's called. Right, so now what you're listening to is the Rode Wireless GO setup. So this is now connected to the smartlav+, and that's connected into the camera. So that way you can hear whatthe sound difference is like if you were to use an external mic. And we also have the productshowcase mode enabled. This is something thatSony has implemented and it's targeted towardsthose type of video creators. You know, I see a lotof beauty video creators doing this as well, or, you know, maybe foran unboxing a product, they hold up products to the camera. And a lot of the timeswhat they need to do to be able to have it to focusis kind of put that there and then put their hand behind something to be able to catch that. But this mode is supposedto quickly lock on to focus as soon as you bring objects. So I've got a bunch of objects here, and I'm going to justput them close and away, so should be back on me now. And then back to whatever I'm putting in front of the camera. So let's see. Here you go. Back and to me, we'll sayI'm talking about this chip. And then I put it close to the camera and then I can put it back. Say I'm talking about this smartphone. I can just put that forward. You can see that smartphone, I can be talking about the cameras, and then I can pull it back. Seems to be working pretty well. Here's a box. There we go, back again to me. Right guys, so after usingthis for about a week or so, what are my thoughts? Well, I have to say this isan amazing vlogging camera. I can definitely recommend it. Having that flip outdisplay on the side makes a massive, massive difference.

 I'm so glad Sony havefinally gone with this instead of the flip up display. And I don't know if itwas a case of patents or licensing fees or whatever. But regardless, it'shere, I really hope Sony will now get these sideflip out swivel displays. For some of their other lines, I use the a7 III right now a lot. And that's something Ireally do miss having. Now you saw some of the samplefootage, and in my opinion, it's really really good,great quality video that you're getting out of this camera. I really liked the shallow depth of field that you're getting onsomething the size of this, it is F1.8 and having thatbokeh button right here, the C1 button just makes itso much easy to activate that, you don't really need to betoo technical or anything, you can just switch that on,and it's going to give you that nice blurry background. I actually didn't know that this has an ND filter built in as well. The best way to describe itis sunglasses for your camera. So if you are out andit's very, very bright, you still want thatshallow depth of field, you want that blurry background, then putting on the ND filter. Again really, really good, and I'm so glad that it's here. Autofocus is absolutely amazing, how quick it was to focus in, it was tracking my eye pretty well, too. But regardless, it'stracking my face really well.

 So focus is so, so good. And that product showcase mode. I mean, I'm not sure why nobody else has thought of this beforeor if it wasn't achievable, but if you're somebodywho does lots of product showcase shots, you know,where you need to put things up to the camera, then, you know,I've seen it so many times, I'm sure everybody's seen it, where people have to kindof put their hand behind. That is the thing of the past, I was so impressed withhow well this focused in to the objects that I washolding close to the camera, and then focusing back to meas soon as I moved those away. Very, very good. Stabilization really, really good. Of course, stabilizationis very important. If you're going to be vlogging, you're going to be moving around a lot. And active steady shotdoes a really good job. One thing to bear in mind however, is that when you do haveactive steady shots enabled, then it does crop in to the frame. Now it's completelyunderstandable why this does this because this uses hardwareas well as software to provide that stabilization. 

But the thing is, if youare holding this handheld, then it is going to bepretty tight on your face. And generally when youwant to be vlogging, you do want a wider angle of view so you get bit more ofthe background in too. And for that reason, I woulddefinitely recommend picking up a gorilla pod or a grip,maybe this Sony grip as well. The Sony grip, however,is around 170 pounds. So that is pretty expensive. Now this is a really good grip,you do have these controls, which are really useful and handy, does give you that separation as well. I really like that. And although I did find myself accidentally pressing a lotthese buttons on this grip, you do have a lock switch. So that is quite handy and useful. But you don't necessarilyhave to buy this, you could get a cheapgorilla pod or something, something that's basicallygoing to give you a little bit more separationfrom the camera lens to your face. So I would definitely recommend that. Now touching on audio, I have to say that the audioquality was really good, very usable, especiallyusing this windshield. So if you do have windy conditions, then this is going to be really useful. As you heard from the examples earlier on, you could hear me clearly even though there was a lot of wind in the background.

 Now of course you are goingto get better audio quality if you do use an external mic. And as we saw from the example of me using the Rode wireless kit, it just made the audio that much better. So if you are serious about your audio, then I would advise gettinga separate mic or something, maybe something that you can mount on to the hot shoe as well will be an option. Now let's not forget thatthis is also a stills camera and not just the video camera so you can get some reallyexcellent stills on here too. Once again, that's wideopen aperture gives you a really nice depth of field and that's very impressive considering the small size of this camera. So that was a lot of the positives. But of course there aresome negatives as well. Speaking of the buttonlayout and controls, I do like that we now have a record button for video separate to the stills button.

That is here at the top,so it's easier to access rather than beingsomewhere here at the back, so that's quite nice. However, I did find thatswitching modes was not as easy as I'm used to, there is an extra step. You do have to press this Mode button and then you have this digital dial that you can scroll through toselect your different modes. I'm used to having a physical dial which I can just switchon other Sony cameras, not a deal breaker by anymeans but just something that I think that I should mention. And the battery life, the battery life I found was not great. It is using a pretty small battery. I'm assuming Sony have done this because it's the samebattery on other models. And if you're coming from one of those, you're still going to beable to use your batteries which is great, but I do wishthis had a bigger battery. Now in terms of my use, Ido film in 4K, and you know, I did have Bluetooth enabledso it could connect to the grid and I was starting andstopping quite a bit, I wasn't reviewing everysingle shot that I took. And with that kind of usage,I got around 20 to 30 minutes of recorded footage beforethe battery flatted out over a couple of days. So to me that's not great battery life. And if you're thinking of getting this, I would definitely recommend picking up a couple of spare batteries,having those charged to hand so you can easily justpop them in when needed. 

The other thing that Idon't like is the fact that we still have micro USB. So when it does come tocharging the batteries, yes, if you've got a separatecharger, that's fine. But if you are chargingvia the camera directly then you're going to haveto have a micro USB cable. I mean it's 2020, all my devices right now have a USB Type C. So I would have liked USB Type C, micro USB really shouldbe extinct in 2020. Another thing is that ifyou do have this mounted on a tripod or even the grip,then you no longer have access to the battery and SD card compartment. So what that does mean isthat even if you have a plate on here and you need toquickly change your battery, you're going to have to remove that plate that will be going into tripod before you can get access to the battery. And as mentioned, youwill be doing this a lot, maybe not to change the memory card but to change the batteries. 

So if this 1/4 inch pinwas in the middle or more towards this side, then thatwould make life a lot easier. Now having said that, I stillreally liked this camera. And if you're after avlogging camera in particular, I think this is probably oneof the best options out there. For pricing, it is comingin at around 700 pounds, it's going to be available from June. And that pricing is roughlyabout what you'd be expecting for a premium compact vlogging camera. It's cheaper than some ofthe larger higher end models, the mirrorless but it's alittle bit more expensive compared to other compacts. However, based on everythingthat it offers as a package, I do think it's worth it and I would have noproblems recommending this. What do you guys think of the Sony ZV-1? Definitely drop me a comment below and let me know your thoughts. I hope you enjoyed thisvideo and found it useful It was fun to actually doa camera review for change rather than just smartphones. 

So if you do want to seemore of that as well, then do let me know. If you want to see more coverage like this here on the site you haven't already, then be sure to subscribe. Thanks for reading this is sanjit, and I'll see you next time.

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