Is the SONY ZV1 Still WORTH IT in 2023? (Longterm Review!)

now that the zv1f is out and the Google pixel 7 and the iPhone 14 and every other point and shoot on the market is at our disposal as well as a ridiculous amount of mirrorless cameras to choose from now is the Sony zv1 still a good purchase then so why do I reach for my zv1 over my other cameras or my phone even and will I be picking up the new Sony zb1f the fixed focal length little brother to this guy well I have an unexpected answer to that question and some surprising comparisons from my high-end cameras to this one and eight clear-cut reasons that will answer is a Sony zv1 worth it in 2022 and Beyond so I'm modeling this video after my Sony a7c video where I question also is it worth it and why I still reach for the A7 C compared to the Sony zv1 because recently I hopped on a plane again to travel to my parents house in Charlotte North Carolina this is my third trip in the last three months and the first trip I traveled with my Sony fx3 and the second trip I've I traveled with my Sony a7c and now I've got my Sony zv1 so I'm doing this video because it's easy to compare the video quality across all three cameras when you're in the same setting and I recently took my Sony a7c in the lake with me just like this okay we are in Lake Norman with Rocco and we are gonna go paddle in the lake he's got a floaty and a stick and we're ready to go it's a big ocean with our pirate shanties so it's crazy how close those two images look with minor variances in my color grade but the Sony a7c is a thousand dollars more expensive than the zv1 not to mention how costly the lenses are on top of that price so our first reason to pick this up is its insane value as it goes from around 400 used to about 700 brand new so you get a lot for your money and if you know how to use the zv1 correctly which is usually all about exposure and color grading you may not be able to tell the difference yet the biggest difference is I had a variable ND on my Sony a7c whereas here I have only two stops of internal ND so what do you have to do to sort of overcompensate for it I'm boosting up the shutter I am at 1 1600 shutter speed which is a bit crazy I try to keep it at 150th I'm not too strict about it but let me show you what that would look like okay so now we are at 150th and this is the shutter speed for the 180 degree rule that you're supposed to have for Pure motion blur that looks most cinematic which is I'm shooting in 24 frames per second so double that is 150th but this is not going to work so here we go let's boost it back you wear zebras are telling me it is okay enough so we'll go back to 1600 again this is obviously going to be much different motion blur but the image is still good I don't know if a lot of people would have noticed if I didn't mention it so did you even notice that my shutter speed was so crazy I think some of us tend to get bogged down in all the shoulds when a camera like the zv1 is all about usability and practicality so my reason number two is it's auto mode it's all you actually need the zv1's intelligent auto mode for both photo and video is fantastic for beginners or just Pros on the go okay so another feature that I think is sort of underutilized by people that consider themselves sort of pro photographer or videographers is the intelligent Auto either photography or videography mode which is just intelligent and then it's got the either picture of the Reel or the camera so this is that we're at 1 125th shutter I'm at F 2.0 ISO and was 1 60th and it's auto ISO and there's no picture profile on it so this is what the Sony zv1 thinks I should be doing right now at sort of a difficult time of day where there's it is backlit I guess it you can get blown out as well I think my shirt's already blown out looks like the water is so this isn't how I would do it but we also have the standard picture profile and the colors straight out of the camera are pretty good so I think if you were a newbie putting it in this intelligent auto mode you'd probably be the best way to go and just generally doing that you don't think you need to overthink it or if you want a tinker with a picture profiles this is reason number three this is a great camera to grow with to learn the craft it's great for beginners but because it also has all the settings that your full frame cameras will have you can kick it into manual mode and learn how to use your camera so when you're ready and you've saved up you can upgrade and transition smoothly to those bigger cameras because you will played around with all the settings and likely learned how to color grade some flatter picture profiles like H or s-log giving you more creative control than you get with just the standard color which again is still excellent but you'll find that zv1 is almost as easy to color grade as it is to just pick up and shoot the fact that I can just pick up this camera I can swim with it I can put it down and pocket it I'm not really worried about dropping it I always keep this sort of hand strap to it just in case you never know if you're going to drop anything but yeah I just want to see what do you think of the image quality by compared to the Sony a7c when I was in a lick I'm shooting in both an h-log 3 and again the exposure is going to be very different I'm shooting at 1.8 at 24 millimeters so we're wide open I think I had Auto exposure on just like our auto ISO just like last time um so yeah what do you think it's another beautiful day in the lake love that I can be out here swimming holding my camera and it's yeah it's pretty ideal so what did you think of the colors from the standard profile to a more flat to a graded look now in case you didn't know but the advantage to being able to shoot in a log format like H log 3 is that it increases your dynamic range and ability to save highlights and recover Shadows which brings me to reason number four shooting and log also helps you color grade and match to your higher end cameras making the zv1 a phenomenal B or C cam here look at how I match hlg3 from a recent video so here I think is a probably more true test which is I'm using a similar picture profile and I'm going to use the same Lut and not going to really Tinker with much else just to see can you actually match I also am using ND filters on all of them so I'm just trying to get the right exposure they have different base isos I think the fx3 is at 100 this one's at the zv1 is at 250 and I think the a7c is at 125 so they all have different isos because completely different sensor sizes so let's see how this works and I took some other sample footage and hopefully this test will be much better than the previous one so again my a7c here my fx3 here and my zv1 here so clearly the zv1 can be an amazing C or B camera but many times it's my only camera and as an acam it's a beast on its own meant for traveling and vlogging which which brings me to reason number five it's so damn small it's a perfect camera to not just pocket but to Vlog in public with okay so I'm off again bags packed and this time instead of taking my Sony a7c I'm going to take my Sony cv1 because it's smaller it's easier to pack and I think it's the Sony zv1's turn to try it out so we're gonna go in here [Music] however I'm really good at traveling I am horrible at vlogging even though it's super discreet it's not the camera's fault because it really is the perfect tool to sneak around with now most of these shots I got with were from the hip with nobody noticing something I couldn't do with my bigger camera and it's a Skittle I really do want to get better at which is using this camera in public so it's like training wheels of a camera for me I can get the high quality shop that I need without anybody noticing or I can try to be brave practice and try to talk to it like a big boy [Music] think I gotta uh in Charlotte and you probably can't hear me but yeah [Music] so one thing I wanted to add was how much I hate trying to talk to the camera while I'm in public and I thought using the zv1 would be better but it's just something I'm not really good at and maybe most people don't really want you to be talking to that they're pulling out a camera at the airport so again it's something I need to get better at because what makes this maybe the best vlogging camera period and why it's way better than your phone is reason number six the audio the built-in mic is fantastic and better than my full frame camera so I'm going to compare the Sony a7c with and without post-processing with a dialogue preset on Premiere Pro and also the other thing I want to talk about is the in-body microphone so I've got no extra boom attached and I think you could probably hear me can you hear me you say hi and so we're just gonna watch the thunderstorm come in and hopefully not get hit by lightning lightning is that that streak of color in the sky it goes see ya well what's that color so now you've heard that I've always had the sense that the Sony zv1 was a little bit better and I'm not sure why if it's accurate but this is what it sounds like with no post processing straight out of the camera with all the ambient noise going on the waves crashing the birds chirping and just general boat motors going and people laughing now this is what it sounds like again just as I've had it the whole time with its post process I had the dialogue preset on I've cleaned up some of the noisy uh Ambiance sounds and just sort of boosted I believe the male vocal I think it's called Mal boost or something like that so you can hear what this sounds like with and without and it's pretty good so I'm not attaching I never usually bring an extra boom mic with me so it's just that great out of the camera and that's one reason the Sony zv1 is still an amazing camera to have just point and shoot and record and it's great like that okay dang that's like a thousand percent better now I knew it was going to be good because you can literally see how large of an area the microphone takes up on the camera body but to actually hear the difference now if you want even better audio you can always attach a boom mic to it you can plug it in the three and a half millimeter audio jack on the side or and this is ridiculous but it is an advantage that the zv1 has over the zv1f because it has a hot shoe which means it has electronic contact points within the mount that can communicate with the accessory directly like a microphone so you could attach this XLR handle to it which I honestly don't know if I've ever seen this before but foreign okay so this probably looks ridiculous um but you can tell that the mic is working Mike is working and I don't know gives it a little top handle I mean this is a pretty Pro setup um I don't know if I'd ever use it like this but it is possible because you have the hot shoe so there's that okay but the whole point is you don't need to you actually want this setup to be as small as possible because reason number seven it's so easy to fly in a Gimbal and the cheapest imaginable ones like the giant M2 crane which is one of the highest quality most affordable gimbals on the markets like only 150 dollars and it pairs beautifully with the zv1 for vlogging or docking here here let me show you so another thing I really love about using the Sony zv1 is the Xing M2 crane it is the cheapest lightest most portable gimbal to use not just with the zv1 but just in general to use I've even used it on my Sony s7c they have made fewer versions of this but I still find myself using this it's easy to set up it's so powerful compared to what the Sony's ev1 weighs and I don't have to really spend a lot of time trying to really Tinker with getting the balance perfect it pretty much just put it on and it's good enough probably should get better at balancing I would use it more often that way but because it's so easy I could just put it on and go with it and you know it's great for vlogging it doesn't add that much more weight to it but it actually adds like a little grip so I can extend the field of view a bit and it's just smooth and stable so with the act of steady people feel like that's a bit too close um but I don't mind it at all this focal length is pretty perfect for me and it's really good just to make those shots look that much more cinematic because the thing is Sony zv1 pretty powerful as far as images comparative even the Sony a7c and fx3 that I have so adding this little extra cinematic touch with it being smooth with the gimbal it just sort of adds to the sort of higher production quality value of a vlog shot like this now speaking of log shots let me just get to the last and final reason why the Sony zv1 is still worth it no matter what the year is and why it won't be picking up the zv1f because and this is a controversial reason but reason number eight and I do actually have a bonus reason after this with maybe the best slash most fun slash most underutilized feature on this camera but first reason number eight and that is the zoom range and I have a whole video coming up on this later where I dissect the best focal length if you're going to have one prime lens to travel with or your camera has a fixed focal length like the 20 millimeter on the zv1s and I think people get a little obsessed with ultra wides when they're vlogging not realizing how distorted your images will be as in it's not accurate to real life and then you look at all the kit lenses that come with most sonys and most mid-range zooms they all start at 28 millimeters and the zv1 has a zoom range of 24 to 70 with a variable aperture of 1.8 to 2.8 which is brilliant I'd love a full-frame zoom equivalent but as most will know and why I believe the cv1f exists is because everybody cried at how tight the 24 millimeter is for vloggers because when you have active steady on and after all said and done with the crop you're actually closer to 28 millimeters which is way too close to Vlog right so I say no no it's not my favorite focal length is 24 to 28 because faces don't get too distorted and you still get enough of the environment that you get the coverage you need plus when you turn the camera around you got a fairly true to life Viewpoint and then you can zoom to 70 millimeters I get it though a range of 18 to 50 would be perfect for a lot of people but after playing with this camera and my other kit lenses I don't mind and almost prefer vlogging at 24 to 28ish if it means we get the 70 millimeter reach too so I'm happy the zb1f exists for people who strictly Vlog but the versatility of this camera is fantastic and the fact that you can fit this all in your pocket is almost more than we deserve oh kidding sort of but it also has one more trick up its sleeve and every time I pull this camera out I almost forget that I can do this and this is the bonus reason this camera does 960 frames per second for that super duper stupid slow-mo shots ensure it's only in 728p but with the right lighting conditions it's certainly usable and it's it's definitely fun it just increases the versatility and value of the zv1 this camera really has a at all for the price point and I can't wait to see what's in store for us next with the Sony zv2 but for now this camera is without a question still worth it in 2022 or 2023 or 26.97 or whatever now I'll leave you with a few more comparison shots with the zv1 a7c and fx3 so you can really see how great of a value this guy is and how the image holds up against some full-frame cameras now thank you for your time and attention I've got a bunch more videos on the way so consider following along and subscribing to see what's next alright thanks Guy [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Brian Catalano

Views: 40,744

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Id: xAdYHbby2j0

Length: 18min 5sec (1085 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 29 2022