(upbeat music)
- Inside of this box is a brand new Sony camera
that I got a week early.
Here it is.
Ta-da!
This is a new camera out by Sony.
We are right now using a DSLR Sony A7 S3
I think it's called.
This camera right here is my AX53;
this is my vlogging camera that I use when I go around.
This is it.
This is the camcorder right here.
This is what I've been using for the longest time,
for all of my videos when I vlog, when I travel.
The problem with this though,
is that when I go to a sporting event
and I'm sitting there talking to my camera like this,
I get kicked out because they see this
as like a professional filming device or something.
A cell phone you can get into anywhere with,
but sometimes you don't wanna use your cell phone
for all of your videos because
the audio isn't quite as good,
or the zoom function might not be as good,
or you wanna use your phone for other things.
You don't wanna run the battery down.
So Sony came out with a camera that
should solve some of those issues.
It's small and compact enough
where you don't look so weird holding a big camera out there
while you're vlogging.
This is called the ZV1 and the cool thing about
this camera, too, is I went up to Montana
to Camera Camp a few months ago.
We were with the Sony engineers that make
all of the cameras, and they asked us,
what would make a camera better?
What can we do better?
This was one of the requests that we had,
and there's a few things specific with this
that no other small handheld camera has.
One, I can fit it into my pocket when I go somewhere,
kinda like a cell phone,
where I can't fit my camcorder or a DSLR in my pocket,
so it's easier to travel with.
Another thing with it that's really nice:
Ta-da, flip screen is right there.
That is something that these little handheld cameras
have struggled with.
Sony hasn't had the flip camera like this.
I think Cannon has had one where you flip it up
and it's right above you like in this section here.
But that also was a little bit annoying
because sometimes you couldn't push the buttons,
or if you had a microphone on the top,
or like a little fuzzy thing,
it would cover up the screen.
So the side is the perfect place for the camera to be.
One of the things that are lacking
on little handheld cameras are the microphones.
It does have a slot right here,
the hot shoot spot so you can actually
take a microphone, like a full on mic
and stick it on there,
and then you've got a camera right there
with a really really nice microphone.
So that's pretty cool that it has that option,
so you have a directional mic,
or an omni directional mic.
It's built onto a little handheld camera.
Quite a cool thing about it is that
it does have this microphone on the top
that is enhanced for this camera.
So this is Sony's directional three capsule mic;
it's designed to optimize the sound in front of you,
so if you're holding it like this,
it's designed to pick that up.
A lot of the daily vloggers,
they'll have these cameras,
and then they stick on with some adhesive
these little sticky wind things on top of here.
I tried that once, but I could never figure out
the ones to buy,
and couldn't figure out how to put it on.
Well Sony is smart; they listen to our feedback
at Camera Camp, and they included one in here.
You slide it into that, and it covers up the mic.
That is brilliant.
See, that's cool.
Now when it's windy outside,
it still should block the wind a bit.
Okay, I am rolling right now.
There we go.
Hi Hans.
Hans is here; he's helping me film right now.
And bam, we're vlogging just like that.
So it's really bright in the background right now
with this going on right now,
and I'm just on the default settings,
and you can see as I turn it,
it's adjusting, it's focusing on my face.
I'm somebody that never uses the flip camera.
I use it at first just to make sure that I'm in focus,
but then I take it,
and I go like that because I really want
to be able to talk to the camera and look at it,
but I know there's a lot of people
that like to be able to see themselves,
but you can see when I look at it,
it's like my eyes are not paying attention to you.
And sometimes that split second of looking over at the side
can make you not wanna watch the video.
So just a small YouTuber tip.
There is definitely a big bright light on the front
that tells me that you're filming, so that's pretty cool.
I've done it so many times.
I did it today, and I did it yesterday
where I think I'm filming, and then I go back and I'm like,
crap, I didn't even push record on it.
So this has barely any battery out of the box.
I'm gonna charge it for about an hour.
Full disclosure: Sony did not pay me for this video.
They did not even give me this stuff.
They sent it to me, I'm gonna film something with it today,
and I have to send it back tomorrow.
They did give me early access to it,
so take it for what it's worth.
I'll give you my honest review for it,
but let's get her charged up.
Let's go outside and check it out.
Okay the camera is charged and now I want to go on a ride
in the Tesla Roadster to check this thing out.
The sun is about to set here,
maybe we can catch the sunset from the top
of a beautiful rock somewhere.
I'm just holding the camera at normal with my hand;
I'm not using the tripod or anything
because I wanna simulate what I would use this for the most,
which is me just holding the camera.
(upbeat music)
Okay, so right now we're riding with the top off
in the convertible.
It is windy.
I'm sure you hear the wind,
but it's probably not quite as loud
as what it would be without that wind thing on top.
(upbeat music)
This is the most off-roading I've ever done in this car.
(upbeat music)
This is one of my favorite places;
we've filmed videos here before,
we threw I think a massaging ball off of here for a video,
but it's called Simba Rock, that's what we call it.
It's scary; I'm like on the edge of a cliff right now.
I don't know if you can see it behind me,
but it drops straight down
and this rock is just jutted out from the other rocks.
The wind is blowing pretty hard.
I don't know what it sounds like on the mic,
but let's test what it looks like.
Right now the sun is probably super bright,
it's probably hard to see my face, I'd imagine.
If I turn like this,
how quickly did it adjust to my face?
Can you see me pretty well?
And then bam.
I guess I could just turn the camera, flip camera around.
I'm not used to having that option.
Without this on it, this is what it sounds like right now.
You can hear me.
That's with the wind blowing,
that's without this little dead cat, as they call it.
And as I take every step, I'm like,
how close am I to that cliff?
Okay now I'm gonna put it back on
and let's see what it does here.
The dead cat is now on.
How does that sound?
The wind's blowing pretty hard here.
I don't know how fair of a test it is,
but I'll probably put some text on the screen
saying that it's a lot better or it's not,
and you can tell the difference yourself.
The sun is almost down.
It's happening; it's sunset right now,
this is golden hour.
I'm on the edge of a cliff using the new camera.
The things I do for this.
I'm gonna step off the cliff 'cause
it's kinda windy out here.
The last little bit, it's going down,
there goes the sunshine.
I think it's creeped behind the mountain.
There you go, Sony Camera.
We're vlogging, we're watching the sunset,
we're riding in the Roadster.
I think this is super useful to just be out and about
and be traveling and have this thing in your pocket.
But I am curious to hear how the wind is going.
This was a nice excuse to get outside
and to be active and to go up into the mountains,
and whether you're testing out a camera or not,
I hope that during this strange pandemic time,
like it's super strange right now,
that I know it's good to be safe inside of your house,
and you should do that especially if you're older
or you're at high risk.
But if you can, get outside and be safe,
and be away from people.
Nature is so beautiful, and it's actually really comforting,
and it's something that can really, I don't know,
bring happiness and joy to your life.
Just go out and watch the sunset.
But before it gets too dark,
I've gotta get my stinkin' car down this dirt road.
It was tricky trying to get it here.
It's incredibly steep on this hill,
and I didn't know how well to trust the parking brake.
Good news is my car is still there.
Let's see if we can get down the hill safely.
Parking brake is no longer on.
I would like to, after I make it home
safely down this hill hopefully,
Whoo!
Feel that, I hit the brakes, we're just skidding right now.
I wanna take this home and compare it to the camcorder,
so I'm gonna do that when we get home,
and just kind of give some of my thoughts.
I've been filming on that same camcorder, the AX53
for four or five years now.
So I have a pretty good idea of what it looks like,
and then I give my full thoughts about
how this camera works and where you might wanna use it for.
Hopefully we make it down this hill safely.
I am back home, I uploaded all the footage,
and I reviewed the footage just barely,
and there's a few thoughts that I have
after looking at it.
First, when I was standing on that rock
and I was turning this,
with the Sony AX53 or I think even with a DSLR,
it would not have looked at my face that well.
It would've been black on my face,
and as soon as it got into the shadow,
it would've shown my face pretty clearly,
and then it would've moved over and adjusted for the sun.
Where this was like a boss, like nothing I'd ever seen,
where it was on my face the entire time
as I came around and I looked at it.
That's super impressive.
So great job on this camera
at keeping your face in focus if you're vlogging.
That is super important.
What I really liked is when I was on top of the Simba Rock,
and it was on my face,
there was a bit of dynamic range.
Obviously this dynamic range isn't gonna be as good as this.
This is like a $5000 camera though versus
this little $800 or so one.
Filming in 4K it did a great job so that was nice.
The third thing that I really liked about it was
it was super windy, and yes you could hear some wind noise,
but it honestly was not that bad.
Yeah, there was a bit of it,
and people in the comments might be like,
there's some wind.
Well guess what, if I was using any of these other cameras,
even with this shotgun mic,
you would've seen the wind also.
One thing that I didn't like about the ZV1
was the shakiness.
When I was holding it or when I was walking,
it didn't appear that this was very,
like it didn't really balance itself out.
Now I was looking at the settings before we left,
and I thought that I had image stabilization turned on.
Let me look at it again here.
So I do have steady shot turned on.
So steady shot, I would think would be the thing
that balances and stabilizes it,
but it was a big shaky.
The other thing I noticed is that
I have not shaved in a long time
and I apologize for the long hair on my face.
It's still kind of quarantine life.
Like everyday is the same, it feels like.
And so I have tons of hair on my face.
I'm sorry.
So yes, this is a good camera.
I'm going to send this one back to Sony
because they asked for it back,
I guess that was part of the deal
of sending it to me early.
But I am going to buy one of these and just to have it,
so these will be my three cameras.
I've got the camcorder Sony AX53,
I've got this little handheld one,
and then I will have the full on DSLR.
These are my three, hold on.
Not three, four.
This is my fourth camera.
These are the four that I use,
these are the four that I love,
and if I were somebody that was
just starting out on YouTube right now
and you wanted to get started,
cell phone is the first way to go.
Use your phone as much as you can,
and when you're looking to step it up
and try to get something a little different,
a little separate from your phone,
this is a great camera for you to use,
whether you're out and about or at the house,
this is a good one.
And yeah, Sony, thanks for sending this.
Hope you liked my camera review.
Not super comprehensive, but there you go,
that was fun.
I think I'm gonna go shave now.
(upbeat music)
And now, whoops.
(slow motion) And now, whoops.