Today we've got a full review and video test of the new Sony ZV1
Hey there welcome to the video I'm Mark Brown from Ediotrs Keys, now in a second
we're gonna jump into the full review of this the Sony ZV1 but now we're
actually filming on a Sony a6400 and I've put the kit lens back onto the
camera so what I'm gonna do now is switch to the Sony ZV1 so you can
instantly see what the quality's like. Ok so we have now jumped into the Sony
ZV1 what do you think there from the jump between the a6400 and this? Did you
notice a big difference in image quality, what do you think of the colors and the
background, maybe the skin tones? Let me know. Now before we jump into this review
we're gonna try and keep all of the settings the same as the a6400. Of
course the lenses are slightly different and the focal lenght is slightly different
but in this review I'm gonna be covering everything from absolute beginner stuff
to pro level things so if you want to maybe skip around the video check out
the description below as I'll timestamp the video so you can jump to the bit
that you want to see. Anyway let's get into it let's have a look around this
camera and see if this is the best vlogging camera you can buy.
So if you're looking for a good vlogging camera there are a few boxes I think you need to tick...
Number 1 - you NEED a flip-out screen otherwise, you can't see yourself when
you're recording and to ensure you're framed correctly, now this is the first
Sony with a flipout screen and it's pretty good!
Next up you need good audio the Zed v1 has a fairly decent onboard three
directional microphone but the major plus here is that you can use an
external microphone we tend to use the rogue Wireless go for our videos the
camera takes the bx1 batteries and more on those later now there's even an ND
filter built right into this camera which is great to see this helps if
you're filming in bright areas or outdoors in direct sunlight in addition
to some great colors coming out of the camera does everyone supports picture
profiles such as s log and h LG which means you can record much more dynamic
range so let's take a look at the video quality and here's what I filmed on
first date with the camera
so let's talk autofocus this camera has seriously good
I ought Oh focus now I'm going to use the iPhone 11 Pro here on the side so if
you look at the little flip out monitor you can see around my eye there's a
little box and even as I move the box stays on my eye and this means that your
face when you're talking to camera will stay perfectly in focus and I've used
other cameras in the past even the iPhone a Canon M 50 sometimes you can be
talking to camera you do your best take ever you play the footage back and you
realize your face has gone out of focus even if it's for a few seconds where
it's trying to hunt onto a light in the background and it can just absolutely
ruin the take and it means you have to record everything again so this
autofocus system on the Sony is everyone is absolutely exceptional
it's even better than the one on the a 6400 so this is a big thumbs up for me
for autofocus
so I've come out of the house today to test the microphones on the zb1 now the
microphones sound really great when you're in the studio and I thought I'd
get outside as it's a pretty windy day you can see the trees swaying in the
background so how does it sound what's the noise levels like can you hear the
wind affecting the microphones one thing about the Sony Zed v1 they do include a
dead cat in the box and if you haven't seen one of these
before this just basically stops wind noise or should stop wind noise so let's
put this on and see how it sounds okay so we now have the dead cat installed on
the top of the Zed v1 so this now covers the microphone and it should reduce that
wind noise how is the audio now obviously I can only hear this one we're
back in the studio but I'll move around just so you can hopefully catch a bit of
the wind and we can see if it's taken that wind noise out but I'd like that
Sony have just include this straight out of the box I would probably leave this
on especially if you're doing any travel vlogs or if you're walking around so let
me know what you think of the audio quality so let's talk about this
background defocus button now this is really cool
if you look at the background of me here you can see the editors key sign is in
focus the pillows are in focus and the bookcase and things like that by press
the background defocus button you'll notice now it's much more out of focus
than it was before and this gives you that cinematic look
that people are looking for often when people search for the cinematic look
they're actually looking for a blurry background and it was good for a number
of reasons I'll just turn it off here you can see it's all nice and InFocus
again now but you'll find actually when you use this and if you do this on a
normal camera and just by changing the f-stop you actually put more focus on
the subject on the person talking this is a really nice feature to see and it's
all done with just one press of a button so you don't need any technical
knowledge about lenses and lighting and all that kind of stuff
so we've come down to Saltburn Beach which is in the North East of England so
I thought test out there'd be one for some high frame rate shots and to test
out the zoom built into the camera so one thing about the zoom you'll know is
actually when you zoom in you can hear the zoom on the recording so I listen to
this
so that's about as far as you can get with the zoom you know it's not amazing
but it's pretty good when you go from this
to this
so let's take a look at this slow-motion footage here is HD recorded at 100
frames a second playing at normal speed so let's slow it down to 25% and as you
can see here it plays back absolutely beautifully I would 100% use this in a
project next this is filming at 250 frames a second and you can see this
still looks good I would still use this in a project and it's amazing you can
get this footage from this camera next this is 500 frames a second and you can
start to see here that whilst it looks ok the footage quality does start to
degrade and finally this is 1000 frames a second now it's impressive this is on
a camera of this budget but to be honest I would never ever use this in a project
I think the quality is just far too degraded and you know to be honest I
think a hundred frames a second looks much better slow down to 25% but let me
know what you think
okay so we're walking with standard stabilization turned on and this is
probably what I would have on most of the time from what I've seen in edit so
far it's not the best you know some cameras like the gh five have much
better image stabilization but this is okay I think you can work with this it's
not too off-putting like it is with the a 6400 and you can also add some extra
stabilization in post in Final Cut premiere and obviously there is the
active stabilization you can use as well so this is walking with the active
stabilization turned on this is the maximum amount of in-camera
stabilization you can have as you can see it cops in much more so I would
probably turn this off and then you standard and then try and stabilize in
post now this is with stabilization turned off all together so it should be
pretty shaky because there's no on the body
stabilization there's no digital stabilization it's just an tell so it
should be pretty key I thought I'd record this just so you can see what the
voyage is like without any stabilization on at all
so this is product showcase on the zv1 and essentially it means you can hold
something up to camera and that object will go into focus now usually with a
camera like this let's just put this up here you can see that's in focus you
couldn't do this if you held it like I am now my face would still be in focus
and this would be out of focus but this works really really well so you can hold
any object up it focuses on it really well and then the face comes back in
even really small objects like pens that are sort of semi-transparent still work
so they've done a real great job here you know if you're a vlogger youtuber
business user for the first time and you want to show off products or maybe
something in your videos this is a great feature to have I didn't even know I
needed this feature until I used it on this camera and I'm glad it's here
because I absolutely love it
so I've been blogging with a camera now for about two weeks so let's talk about
battery life the camera uses these very slim bx1 batteries and that sort of a
pro and a con the con is that you only get about an hour's worth of battery
life with a single battery the pro is that you can buy these batteries very
very cheap on Amazon I'll put a link in the description below where you can get
two batteries and a charger for about fifteen pounds which is around eighteen
dollars so that's not too bad
okay so let's go up all close and personal one feature I want to talk
about is the beauty feature now I've got this set to OFF at the moment so you can
skip seeing the skin looks probably pretty bad let's put it down to low so
this should soften the skin lightly making you look a little bit softer
making your skin look nicer this is now set to mid has that changed anything at
all and let's change it up to high now I can't really see very well on the small
flip monitor but even on high I can see it softened it quite a bit so I wouldn't
have this on I would probably have it if anything on low I think you I've won it
on low or not at all because you still want that sharpness on your skin so this
is on low let's have a look at off and there is off and you know I think if you
like me I do suffer from a bit of bad skin you know you get its spots and
pimples so this would be a nice feature to have on just if you're a bit more
self-conscious or if you've had a bad skin day so one thing I've been thinking
about as I've been walking around with this camera
it's just how good it is to have a really decent slim and light buy camera
with you you know we often carry around the a 6400 and as you've seen it's quite
a big camera with a hefty lens and for that you need to carry around a backpack
or a bag with this once I'm done recording I can just put away the flip
up screen and then I can put in my pocket and you're good to go now this is
something simple that I really like and I wish every other camera had it and
it's just a small LED red light that comes on to let you know that you're
recording I can't tell you the amount of times I've talked to camera especially
if I've been recording on my own I've been talking for 10 to 15 minutes I
press stop what I think I do and I realized I haven't even hit the record
button in the first place so this little red LED is really helpful if you're
vlogging on your own because when you're looking at camera at least you'll know
you've hit that record button so there we go that's my review of the Sony Zed
v1 now when I purchased this and I did buy now of my own money and wasn't
expecting a great deal for it you know when people have said to me before I'm
looking for a vlogging camera for my first camera I always said just stick
with your iPhone you know it's the the phone you've got in your pocket films
great and it still does but know what this is really taking you to
the next level you've got microphone input you've got a really good built-in
microphone you've got picture profiles the dynamic
range on the camera is great and I would say the picture quality coming out of
this is far superior to that of the iPhone 11 Pro but if you want to see a
comparison video of this versus the iPhone 11 Pro check out the videos on
the channel because I'll have that up next after this video and we'll also be
doing some tests with this verse as the a 6400 so stick around if you want to
see those videos but thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one
you