Sony Digital Vlog Camera ZV-1 Only (Compact, Video Eye AF, Flip Screen, in-Built Microphone, 4K Vlogging Camera and Content Creation) – Black

I got this camera after seeing rave reviews in YouTube. However, this review will focus on the shortcomings only. I discovered after 10 days of use.
1. Poor battery life : does not last even 3 hours of use. However, this is compensated by the extra battery provided. But the way battery compartment is designed does no good to the purpose. you need to unscrew from mount to change The battery. So you will need to break your schedule in case u are shooting something continuous.
2. Error Error – the dreaded E:62:10 error appeared in my camera after few days of use. Although I did not face any difficulty in shooting. It did make my experience bitter. Could not resolve though the solutions available on internet. The usual switch on of. Change battery etc does not work and the error message is a part of the display now.
3. Mic : even tough the mic is a strong one. It does not do well to reduce background noise.
4. Charging time : 150 mins. This really restricts ur ability to shoot and u need to plan ahead if you are a serious vlogger.
5. Not weather proof. : the manual says it is not weather proof and small amounts of water may damage the internal circuits. I mean why? It restricts your ability to take outdoor shoot and a vlogger would not take this.

Apart from the above. The camera delivers what it promises in the review videos.

Update :
My lens assembly was faulty. Thankfully Sony service centre was open and as directed by the Sony representative, I gave the camera for repair. It took 14 days to get the part from abroad and complete the repairs. Now, the camera is working fine. No issues as such.
Update 2: Please go through the settings and understand each setting before shooting. There are a lot of helpful YouTube videos on this camera.
Update 3 : The camera worked fine for 2 days after repairs. As of now it is still in the repair shop. 2 months after purchase the camera is 28 days.(and counting) in repair shop. Even after 2 trips of repair shop the error does not go away. Now it is a permanent display in my camera.
Update 4: Sony had finally replaced the camera with a new one. Will update if there are issues in the new one. From mid September to mid December the camera was in the repair centre for at least 50 days before it was finally replaced.

Like all modern sony cameras, you gotta know to a certain extent what you’re doing to get the most out of the cameras. To be fair, this applies to all cameras including smartphone cameras, but that’s beside the point.
Anyway, this camera was released about 2 years ago at the time of me writing this. I bought it for someone else, as it fit the budget and it has all the features that they’ll need. I did have a day to test it out and the TLDR is that it’s a very easy recommendation for anyone who wants a compact camera that can take excellent stills and videos but doesn’t need a huge zoom range.

My primary digital camera is a sony a6600, and the zv-1 has a very similar image quality to that. Both in video and photo modes. The a6600 of course has more dynamic range and better low light but that camera also costs a little over twice as much as this one and both serve different demographics.

The zv-1 has an adequately fast (i.e. wide aperture) lens with equivalent focal length of 24-70mm, which is a solid range for most things. The lens is sharp throughout the zoom range and has very little defects (defects as in chromatic aberration, distortion, vignette etc.).

The video quality is excellent. If you know your way around any NLE, I’d recommend shooting in 4k @100mbps always and with a custom picture profile with gamma set to s-log2 and gamut set to itu709. Set detail to the lowest possible value (-7). That, i find, to be the optimal setting for the low bitrate 8bit footage. If you don’t want to do post processing, perhaps I’d suggest using no picture profile but turning up DRO to max.

The cons would include a very short battery life. However, the camera can be powered indefinitely with a power bank. I reckon it’s an acceptable tradeoff for the tiny footprint of the camera. Speaking of which, you might also wanna get a strap for it as it doesn’t come with one and if you have bigger hands like i do, there’s definitely a risk of it falling.

I didn’t have time to do super thorough tests, but from what I’ve seen, I think I can easily recommend this camera to anyone who wouldn’t mind the limitations of it. The primary limitations being a smaller sensor size, fixed lens and a small battery.

Oh, and it doesn’t have a flash built in but I kinda prefer not having a built in flash because i never use it and it’s just one more thing waiting to break.

Q. Is it worth 54k?
No, should have been around 40k given that it’s from “2020” & 2023 is almost here.

Q. Is it easy to use?
Yes, if you’re a little experienced & No, if you’re a first timer, so make sure you watch those tutorials first.

Q. Is it good for social media & especially YT?
Yes! A 100%.
UPDATE: The camera is out of the box updated to the latest firmware, so you don’t need to update it… Seems a little suspicious.

I liked the camera! Not the price tho!
🙂👍

It is a good product, but is priced a bit too high for the features available. Battery life is ok, but having to unscrew the camera from the vlogging kit to change battery pack becomes a hassle.