Sony ZV-1F - The Little Camera That Could - IT'S NOT THAT BAD

this is the Sony zv1f and I'm going to show you why it really isn't as bad as some people make it out to be [Music] oh God lens is dirty I don't know how the lens gets fingerprints on it I'm the only one that uses this thing oh well [Music] [Applause] [Music] so for the last handful of Vlogs I've actually been using this camera this is the Sony Z v1f and yes I said Zed because I'm Canadian and that's how we say it and you know what for a lot of the crap that it's been taken since it's been released I have two of them and I found that it's not actually that bad of a camera so today I'm gonna give you a handful of reasons of why it's not that actually that bad of a camera and I will list some cons because there are some don't get me wrong it's not the perfect camera it's not you know the best or whatever I'm gonna give you a good solid five pros and cons of why this Sony zv1f really isn't that bad of a camera and it's not as bad as what everybody is making it out to be so here we go so I'm going to preface this by saying that I know you know it's it's kind of plasticky feeling I get that but honestly it's not really that bad and for what you get in it it's got some features in it that not even my Sony a6100 has let's just keep that in mind So Pro number one the Sony zv1f it's a small and lightweight camera so being so small so it makes it nice and easy to carry around in your bag or your pocket you know and then it's perfect for taking those quick pictures or street photography or vlogging on the go like it's pretty small in comparison I have an iPhone 12 Pro Max and like you can see hi hi buddy you can see the difference here like it's substantially my phone is substantially bigger than the camera I mean heck you can hide it right behind it it's that that small so thickness wise it's not really that bad but it's nice when you want to be fairly inconspicuous heck even with my microphone on it I've got the Sennheiser MKE 200 and it's still really not even that big I mean comparatively to even say my Sony a6100 again it's still way smaller than that you can hide it right behind it it's that small small nice and easy compact light now Pro number two is despite this small size this camera packs a surprising punch for video quality so this has a 20.1 megapixel sensor uh again it's a little bit smaller than the a6100 but I mean in terms of quality of the video it's really not that bad it can film in 4k up to 30 frames per second and it also has the 1080p full HD you can get it from 24 all the way up to 120 frames per second again that's the same as my Sony a6100 and a majority of Sony cameras so again you're getting 120 frames per second with this tiny little camera I don't even think any of the Canon point and shoots do that having that you get awesome slow motion it does have the snq mode so you can just film it straight in 120 frames per second and then it automatically converts it to whatever frame area you want I think I have mine set to 120 and then it saves it as a 24 frames per second file so it's already done the slow motion I myself prefer filming at 120 frames per second just straight up whoa buddy apparently my dog ate a sock the other cool thing that this camera does that not even my Sony a6100 does is it has custom picture profiles so that in itself I can film in Sony S1 log two and three right now I generally pull it oh buddy oh all right I don't even know where I was um picture profiles slug 2s log 3 custom different ones you can change it so that's really cool which leads it to uh um having those custom pitch profiles on this one um I use this one as sort of a street photography kind of photo camera so I have these custom film simulation profiles on here very much like what you would get with like a Fujifilm X100 style camera so I've got uh eight different ones um on this one here eight different film simulations plus the two s-log profiles and these were done by Varys Denny Alex um I'll either link uh one of his YouTube videos that he goes through over over there they weren't terribly expensive I'm pretty sure like the Fujifilm ones are free but with his he's got over 40 simulations now and actually it's not that bad it's a one-time payment 22 pounds so I think I would have paid like 30 or 40 Canadian it's constantly updated so there's tons of different profiles uh film simulations that you can add on here and they work with both photos and videos so if you want like a custom look to your to your photos or your videos and you don't want to go directly edit them in Lightroom you can just add those in and bake it right into the photo and again that's something that the Sony a6100 doesn't have again I'm basing this on what I have it might be different than what you might have so it's what it is I like it that's a pretty cool feature So Pro number three with this camera is the autofocus system now the autofocus for the most part is pretty Top Notch again for the size and style of this camera so this camera has both uh face and eye detection for the focus system for the autofocus now you can't see it right now but when I'm looking at the screen here it's got my eye tracked and then if I'm moving around it goes from my eye now it's on my face so it picks me up pretty quick now sure it's only a contrast based autofocus which is a little bit different than what you would normally get with most Sony cameras a lot of the newer ones do have phase and contrast detection for autofocus but with this even with this being a contrast based system it does benefit from being a Sony camera and having all of that uh previous Sony autofocus technology behind it so even if it does lose focus it gets you back really really quick and it you know for the most part keeps you in Focus no matter what now what this one also does have is a product showcase so with again with a lot of the old I don't want to say old with some of the other Sony cameras if you put a product up you would have to more or less block out your face so it would focus on that now again I have the product showcase off so now I turn the product showcase on so again so it's focused on me right now and then I can put the product there and now it focuses on the product versus without me having to hide my face and I put it back and it focuses on me again which is which is pretty cool not so much I I don't know if you'd really do that much with the I don't know if you do it much with any other Vlog cameras or when you're out vlogging I mean you might be able to but I think it's generally more useful when you are sitting on a desk and it's you know something like this now Pro number four is gonna be the audio right now you're listening to the audio through my Sennheiser MKE 200 uh it's a very small shotgun style mic that's plugged into the microphone import and previously on my a6100 I had the rode uh video micro which again is a very small shotgun style mic this one is a little bit I don't want to say it's a little bit smaller but it is a little less inconspicuous on the camera versus the rode microphone and I've always found that having the shotgun mics are better for vlogging but with the zv1f it's actually got a pretty decent built-in mic you know what let's go outside and I'll show you the difference between the two let's go oh okay what all right I gotta stop the teleporting thing it's switching all my shirts every time now the zv1f has a built-in microphone um currently right now you're listening to um an external microphone that I used as I mentioned before it's the Sennheiser MKE 200 now with the built-in microphone I'm gonna do a couple quick tests here one of them is just going to be the difference between the built-in microphone and the external shotgun microphone just going to read a quick little script now I generally have the camera just on like a manfrotto pixie tripod and my arm is uh well it's like that it's extended but it's not really bent or anything can't really notice much of a difference first one is going to be I'm outside it's generally kind of where you do most of your vlogging it's a tiny bit windy in my backyard but a lot of the trees are kind of uh protecting the uh wind from coming down so the we all belong movement helps kids from around the world to get access to Quality education we believe that every child belongs in school learning and dreaming their days towards a brighter future join us today by visiting our website and help us make their dreams a reality so again that was with the Sennheiser MKE 200 so now I'm just gonna pause for a second and take the microphone off now the external microphone is off now you'll probably have to know what you will notice that the uh you're probably going to hear a little bit more ambient noise it's the built-in microphone um how do you increase the audio gain initially um a lot more lower profile I'll read the same script here again hands are the same arm length away the we all belong movement helps kids from around the world get access to Quality education we believe that every child belongs in school learning and dreaming their days towards a brighter future join us today by visiting our website and help us make their dreams a reality not sure how well that audio is going to sound but in most instances that's about what you're going to use this audio for so again if you don't really want to spend 100 and you know well this again this is Canadian this is like 130 dollars for the for you know for a Sennheiser or Road external microphone I have both I like both of them you can definitely do more than enough with the uh the built-in microphone keep in mind I don't have it with me um there is a windscreen so that that it will cut down on a lot of the noise so I'm gonna head back inside and we'll get to Point number five so the fifth Pro of this camera and again I'm only comparing this really in my circumstance but it does sort of apply to most a lot of the other Sony cameras with obviously the exception of all the other ZB cameras this one has a fully rotatable 180 degree screen now obviously the best uh reason for having the rotating screen is that when you're doing the you know you're vlogging and stuff you can easily frame yourself with my Sony a6100 once I have you know a handle and the microphone on top it only has the flip up screen so so it's basically in the way of of being able to see the only way that I would would be able to do that is if I had a monitor really on top of that and now you know it's pretty much unusable at that point for vlogging this is why I don't usually use it so much for vlogging anymore it's now become either like an acam Cinema Camera the camera that I do a lot of my main video work on the other plus with this particular screen that is not the same as a lot of the other Sony screens is that this one is a full touch screen it now kind of reminds me of when I had my Canon cameras I could actually navigate the menus um with you know just touching the screen you don't have to use the the tiny little wheel on on here you know I can just go to the function menu and you know move around so with that that uh right there is a huge huge plus with this with this camera so that in itself is pretty much a huge plus uh with this camera okay so that was the main five reasons why I think it's a pretty decent camera and you know it really shouldn't be pooped on as much as it is small powerful decent Imaging actually really good Imaging for what it is I'm gonna kind of give about real quick five sort of cons about this particular camera the first one being the obvious it's a fixed lens you get one focal length it's uh 7.6 millimeter lens which is a 20 millimeter lens in a full frame equivalent which for you know street photography and vlogging that's a kind of a real nice uh sort of a sweet spot you know it's not too close it's not too far but again it's a single length so there's no zoom on it there is a digital Zoom but you don't really want to be using that too much another pretty glaring exclusion there's no viewfinder so if you you know you like those ones where you where you do like to have the optical viewfinder it's not there um you just have to make do with the LCD screen now keep in mind there are a lot of point-and-shoot cameras that don't have viewfinders even uh pretty big name brand ones like Leica there are some like uh point-and-shoots that don't have a viewfinder so it's a minor con no big deal a third sort of downside the battery on this thing is Tiny it's the npbx1 battery so it's not even the npf for the NP fw50 that's in the Sony a6000 series you don't get a ton of time like the video on this I I would be lucky if I got an hour's worth of video before I have to charge it picture wise you can probably get two or three hundred pictures out of it I haven't run through a test on that I know Gerald undone's you know done that to death so if you do decide to get one of these and you don't have two of them like I do um you know I definitely recommend probably getting an extra battery or two if you're gonna go out and use this for videos or carry along a USB the battery pack can't get anything done with dogs fourth sort of con downside and I kind of agree with this one is there's very limited manual controls on this camera from the top it's it's very you know you only get a few buttons here this one you can change into a custom button uh so you can put a custom mode on that but you have a little Zoom switcher you've got your button to switch modes and then on the back you have your function and your menu your scroll wheel and a couple other buttons there if you're looking for like the switches and a lot of custom other buttons you're gonna kind of be out of the block on that one so a little bit of a downside you had to get rid of some things so no big deal and the last sort of con is the price yeah it's a little expensive for what it is it's a little bit more expensive than some of the other compact cameras on the market which might put it a little bit Out Of Reach of some people I mean 650 dollars Canadian for one of these might be a little bit of a stretch for you know a quote-unquote basic point-and-shoot camera some of the other one thing to keep in mind I did take a quick look at you know like Best Buy and some of the other sites the other cameras in that price range you're either gonna sacrifice um either being lower megapixel count or it's going to have slower frames per second it won't have that uh 1080p 120 frames per second or even a slower frames per second in taking pictures this can do up to I think it's like 15 or 16 frames per second and a lot of other ones aren't going to be anywhere near that video specs aren't going to be as good as I mentioned before a lot of them will only be 1080 might not even have you know like a high speed so you can do slow-mo but a lot of them in that price range will have a Zoom versus this is the fixed so real quick those are kind of the the downsides and again everybody's situation is gonna is gonna be different the main reason why I got two of these was so that I could have sort of a consistent look in a podcast that I do before I was using like three different cameras I was using my a6100 and then I was using at one point a GoPro on my phone and then and afterwards it was my a6100 and then two old iPhones color grading was a challenge and the file sizes were a little hectic on my computer so now in the podcast setup I've got my a6100 which is the main View and then I've got the two zv1fs uh sort of on the diagonal pointing towards each side of the studio giving that uh three camera view so the benefit with that for me was to have three of the same codecs all in the Sony family trying to keep the colors consistent and the files were a lot easier or are a lot easier to work with on my computer when I do a multi-camera sequence it's a lot easier to switch between the three camera views that's my reasoning for getting it I did also want to have the the one camera as my my dedicated sort of Vlog camera so it has my external shotgun microphone on it generally keep it on my manfrotto Pixie tripod so it's pretty much pick it up and go that's why I love it it's super easy to work with and then I use this one my my third one as my uh sort of dedicated point and shoot camera I can take it pretty much wherever I want it to go again I've got the film simulations on this so when I want to play around with uh sort of different camera views and stuff that's uh this is the camera that I use and then I just leave my Sony a6100 for more professional photography shooting projects when I want to use my better lenses because I've got the 50 mil 1.8 on there and then I've got the better 18 to 105 F4 G lens when I do my hype videos and stuff all my all my sporting videos those are generally the lenses and camera that I'm going to use this is not a camera for everybody that was just a rundown of pros and cons of this Sony zv1f it might not be perfect I get that but it's definitely worth considering if anyone who wants a compact camera that's powerful for vlogging and Casual photography you can't go wrong with the Sony camera I mean ever since I switched to Sony's I really haven't looked back I love my canons but now that I'm in the the Sony ecosystem you know it's a it's a great camera I hope this was you know worthwhile I I didn't want you to overlook this camera yet you're gonna get more with say the zv1 but you're gonna be paying another 300 for a zoom lens is that worth it to you maybe maybe not I like this lens it's it's a great little lens it's a great camera so I hope you enjoyed it I know this is a lot longer of a video than I was expecting to make thanks for tuning in thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next video bye [Music] foreign

Channel: Todd DeSilva

Views: 15,110

Keywords: cinematic, filmmaking, Videography, cinematography, photography, tutorials, sports videography, vlog, vlogs, lifestyle, lifestyle vlogs, sony camera, sony zv-1f, ZV-1F, camera review

Id: AX0HTWoKAfI

Length: 22min 38sec (1358 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 12 2023