Sony ZV1-F Vlogging Camera - The Complete Review

hi guys what you're looking at right now is the nice little zv1f from Sony now this caused a lot of controversy most of it negative when it came out but I got to tell you I really love using this camera and it feels a nice role for me so you know peace guys peace let's talk about it [Music] a bit of this review like this vlogging because I think that is not I think I know that's what this camera is meant to do it's really not good in the photo department and this is primarily what you will use this camera for Sony thinks that that is all you will use this camera for but I also think this camera can be used in the studio and also as another angle a top-down angle another shot I'm gonna move over here so I don't get run over and uh do that almost got killed here vlogging is the most dangerous profession they say now in North America but I do think the zv1f can be used in a lot of different ways and since it's one of Sony's lower priced cameras there's probably a lot of people wondering what it can do well I'm about to show you I mean I currently am showing you so let me just interrupt that amazing Vlog to show you the camera in action in the studio now this is my exact setup that I use for my fancier cameras like my a74 with my G Master lenses and this camera looks just great here it's uh certainly at f2 and this focal length you can use in the studio I am touching the lens right now see that still kept focused contrast based autofocus working well but yeah I definitely think this could be a second angle in the studio or your main angle if you just have the one camera but of course with that small sensor you're going to want to make sure you have some nice lights or some good sunlight otherwise you're going to start to see some grain in your image of course the portability is a major factor for this camera I literally put it in my pocket I just have a little lens cap here 40.5 millimeter lens cap I just stick it on there to make sure my lens doesn't get any smudges in my pockets who knows I might be carrying pudding in there so you want a lens cap and speaking of the 40.5 millimeter filter thread I picked up this inexpensive little variable ND filter that I just stick on there and then it's like sunglasses for your camera so uh as I was using it the whole time out with the Vlog I just put it on so that I can keep my f-stop down to F 2.0 out in the sunlight and get the blurriest background that I can I will link that in the description below you can buy it through there and make me stinking Rich go ahead now this right here is the sound of the onboard microphone which as you can hear is pretty good normally I like plugging in a lavalier mic and to get the best possible audio when I'm out and about but I gotta tell you not bad when you just use the internal mic especially because it comes with that little furry wind muff up top that little Don King wig and that cuts out all of the wind noise so you can really just use the camera like this you got a mic Jack if you want to plug in external audio this USBC Port it is for charging it is also for power delivery which is great news because the battery is quite small on the zv1f and you're going to need several batteries for a shoot or you can bring a USBC power bank and then just do it that way and the USBC Port can also be a direct webcam or streaming Port because you don't actually need any software or drivers it's just plug and play and it will go directly to a streaming service or directly as your webcam and it will output it in 720p though so if you want a higher resolution than that then you use the HDMI port then you can stream a much higher resolution with the HDMI port and you can also use the HDMI port of course for monitoring your video this is what I'm doing right now I have connected my ninja 5 Monitor and the cords are actually on the other side so I still see my full flip screen let me just show you see check that out you have the full flip screen right there and then the ninja 5 monitor because the chords are over there that's pretty cool it's the little things sometimes speaking of little things you also still have access to your battery and your SD card when you're on a tripod because of the placement of the battery door which is an improvement over the Sony zv1 it has Sony's new menu system which I actually like a lot and it's a full touch screen finally for Sony they've brought in the full touchscreen interface which is certainly a welcome change for the Sony cameras I fly through this menu really quickly I think it's great there's also no overheating on this camera in moderate temperatures so you just keep the screen open you apply USB power and then if you want to do very long streams then great this camera can be a nice little streaming camera for you it has 120 frames per second in slow motion so you can slow that down in post yourself and do speed ramping and things like that or you can use the snq function and if you do the slow in the S and Q function the slow and quick then it will make the file for you in camera without sound I actually use the S and Q function mostly for time lapses I like to do quick time lapses with the quick function another great feature it has is automatic vertical video mode a lot of people will want to use this camera for the vertical video The Tick Tock and the booty popping do people do Tick Tock anymore probably not with the YouTube shorts huh I'm doing those I'm confused about them but I am doing those so the camera will just uh automatically go into vertical video mode you'll see yourself vertical in the screen and when you bring it into post it will stay vertical which makes it much easier for the vertical content all right now back to that handsome Vlog now normally I like to use this camera with stabilization off and then I run my footage through Catalyst browse but that is an extra step that is a free software in case you don't know that the zv1f it records the gyroscopic data much like a GoPro but it doesn't do it inside the camera you have to run it through the free program Catalyst browse and then you get gimbal-like footage without a gimbal now right now I am just using the active steady shot and it crops in about 10 which is not too bad it's about the same I would do with Catalyst browse and it is definitely usable I certainly prefer the Catalyst brass because I love that gimbal like footage and uh but this is if you want a quicker workflow here you go stabilization is not fantastic in this so I wouldn't be whipping it around going down the ski hill you know what I mean who goes down ski hills these days anyway stay home have some hot chocolate but in case you want another option which you might consider The Best of Both Worlds you could do the active steady shot and then if you feel like it is not quite stable enough you can run the whole thing through cattle Sprouts put a smaller crop on it maybe a five percent crop and see how that goes so right now you're seeing regular active steady shot now let's put it through Catalyst brows and put on about a five percent crop and see what happens so now you're looking at the footage after I've run through Catalyst brows I put another five percent crop on there you know just to smooth it out for Perfection why are there people doing construction stop working I'm trying to Vlog here some people am I right but this thing is so small and so light and so unobtrusive barely anyone is noticing that I am a self-obsessed vlogger right now look at this thing that's the whole package right there little wireless mic little tiny camera ND filter and a small little extendable tripod I can fit it all in my jacket pockets now granted I'm wearing a giant Canadian snow jacket so I could fit pretty much anything in these Pockets but this camera especially so now let's talk about the autofocus for a second here because the autofocus is great which surprised me because this is supposed to be a contrast based autofocus as opposed to a phase detect auto focus but this thing it just it doesn't lose me now I have had Panasonic cameras in the past with contrast based autofocus and they don't work but Sony I guess has figured it out well enough so that it will keep your dumb face in Focus while you're doing with this camera is meant to do which is Vlog got a little box around my eye right now looks nice so now if you're wondering how I'm getting these wonderful colors out of the zv1f I do what I always do with my Sony cameras which is I use the hlg 3 picture profile then I apply a Paul Leeming corrective Lut that's a paid Lut he doesn't know me nor will he ever want to know me but it's what I use so that is what I recommend and I usually just lower the blacks a little bit but that is it I don't really do any other color correcting because I I love I love the ball beaming lot huh huh this is the best log you've ever seen now the zv1 has something called Product showcase mode where you hold something up and it showcases the product and then the autofocus is supposed to snap back to you and this is where I think the contrast based autofocus is a bit of a drawback on the zve E10 when you use the uh product showcase mode it is Flawless you can put the product anywhere on the screen and the focus snaps to it immediately and then snaps back to you with the zb1f you have to put it right in the center where there's a little box for product showcase mode it doesn't necessarily grab it quite as fast and then it doesn't necessarily go back to your face quite as fast as you can see though it is certainly usable but uh it is not a standout feature so what are some things I don't like about the zv1f well the photos number one is it's baffling to me that they didn't include the ability to shoot Raw photos it's just like I know you don't intend this camera to shoot a lot of photos but it's a camera and a lot of people are gonna want to shoot photos anyway meet included so if I had this camera with me I'm going to want to be able to use raw so it really bothers me that I can't shoot in raw and then color grade my photos the way I want in a program like Lightroom I am stuck with the jpegs and the jpegs do look nice coming out of this camera but still I mean it should have Raw photos in it as I mentioned the active stabilization is not great I do wish it was a little bit better I find it a little jittery you have to be quite careful with your movements which is one of the reasons I like to use the cattle Sprouts all the time but I might skip the Catalyst brows step if it had better active stabilization something more like an a74 has the cold shoe it's a cold shoe that is on top not a hot shoe so you can't connect any of the Sony wireless devices to that cold shoe because there are no connectors the contrast based autofocus I'm going to put this in as a con even though I haven't really noticed any problem with the contrast based autofocus I just know that it isn't as reliable as the phase detect so the fact that Sony didn't put that in again is very confusing to me maybe it is cheaper to put in contrast based auto focus you don't have to put in those phase detect points I'm not sure I'm not a sensor engineer but I do think the autofocus in this camera is quite good but I would trust it a lot more if it was Sony's regular autofocus now a definite downside to this camera is a little LCD flip screen when you were in video mode which you're probably going to be in when you use this camera the LCD it doesn't let you do the sunny weather mode it just has one mode which is fairly dim and very hard to see right now in the nice bright sunlight I can still see where I am I can still see my framing but I have to rely on my zebras to get my exposure correct because I certainly can't see it in the screen another thing is I much prefer a dedicated camera to a phone this Sony camera also matches all of my other Sony cameras I can use this in the studio as a second angle out as a vlogging camera and I can leave my phone to do phone things and at a price of 498 dollars this is going to be attractive for a lot of people so don't let online reviews including mine sway you go try it for yourself see if it suits your needs and if so there you go you might have yourself a great little travel friendly camera I certainly I bought it out of my own money I love it I like to use it all the time anyway thanks for watching we'll talk to you again soon okay bye-bye

Channel: Mark Bennett's Camera Crisis

Views: 14,242

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Id: HqrZ9c1U2wE

Length: 11min 57sec (717 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 09 2023