- Vlogging is hard.
Oh, Mylanta.
First, you have to have something interesting to convey.
Then you have to figure out a compelling way to show it.
Man, and then you like gotta know how to use a camera.
And like any way to make even one part
of that process easier is a win.
And Sony thinks it could help with everything but the story.
This is Sony's newest camera, the ZV-E1.
It packs incredible specs into a really tiny design.
In fact, it is the smallest full-frame camera
you can buy right now,
and it is aimed right at content creators.
I'm Becca.
Welcome back to "Full Frame", buds.
Sony makes a lot of cameras,
but the ZV line has always been
the most user friendly in compact.
Historically, this lineup featured an APS-C,
or a smaller sensor.
With the ZV-E1, Sony has put a full-frame sensor
and its brand new AI processor
from the just released photography-oriented A7R Mark IV
into a form factor that users of this lineup will recognize.
It has a tilting screen,
physical switches for moving between photo,
video and slow motion video,
a zoom toggle under the shutter button,
firm doors that protect the ports and SD card slot,
a windscreen that slides onto the hot shoe for its mic,
and a plethora of buttons,
all located on the right-hand side
for easy operation with your right hand.
Internally, the larger 12 megapixel,
back-illuminated CMOS sensor
brings 15 stops of dynamic range
up to 409,600 ISO.
That can't be good.
422 10-bit 4K, 120 frames per second,
or FHD, 240 frames per second internal video recording,
both of which will come in a later firmware update.
The larger E Mount for use
with the most premium lenses Sony makes,
and of course, a much larger price tag.
Come on, those are impressive specs
for a camera that is this size,
but what's more important is that you actually
know how to use them.
Taking a video with a phone is incredibly easy.
You hit that big red record button,
and then your phone adjusts its magical little settings
to flatten out the highlights and shadows,
optically stabilize the image to minimize shakiness,
and now there are even cinematic modes
that blur backgrounds to create depth.
It is painless and it is simple,
and we can see a lot of those same design cues in the ZV-E1.
The screen is fully touchscreen
and loaded with familiar icons,
such as the big red dot that starts and stops the recording.
It uses an AI processing unit that recognizes a scene
and adjusts exposure.
It selects which mic pattern to use to best capture audio,
and it even adjusts the amount of image stabilization
it applies to create a smooth image.
And Sony also added a CineVlog mode,
drama, but more on that later.
It is so clear that Sony wants folks
to be able to pick up this camera
and just get filming with it.
So for the last week, I took it everywhere with me,
and I let it do the thinking,
which means that I didn't use S-Log
or any color profile that I would have
to color down the road.
I didn't attach any external mics,
and I left it on auto with the included hot shoe
little dead cat thing.
I didn't put an ND filter on it.
I didn't put it on a gimbal.
I just took it in and out of my bag all week
and filmed everything that I would film with a phone,
but instead, with this.
As a professional videographer, I have some notes,
but as an everyday user, I'm impressed.
Oh, noon on St. Patrick's Day
and I haven't heard a single bagpipe.
Little concerning.
All of this footage is straight out of the ZV-E1.
There is very little on the user side
that you need to do to make it look great.
In good light, colors are true to life.
They are just punchy enough
and the system handles shadows quite well.
The details are also crisp
and create video that you feel like
you could just reach out and touch.
I'm really happy that Sony isn't over sharpening the image.
At night though, you can see the camera doing some smoothing
to shadows to combat grain and noise,
though it does feel like with every new camera
we get one stop closer to better low-light performance.
For example, this was shot at 10,000 ISO,
and that is completely usable,
something that I couldn't say
about a camera a few years ago.
How 'bout some pizza.
I only took the autofocus off once
to shoot through this fence.
Otherwise, the system was able to find faces
or lock onto points I chose with ease.
The new AI processor can also find figures,
such as shoulders, and then lock onto the back of heads.
When a person then turns around,
their face is quickly in focus.
I love this and it works incredibly well.
Just a casual three-mile walk home from work.
Ain't nothing to it, folks.
The AI processor also helps with audio.
I didn't need an external mic.
The Brooklyn Bridge, it is not a quiet place.
There is traffic on both sides.
There's always a big breeze and lots of tourists,
but this camera did a very good job
of canceling out all of that.
The best part of walking the Brooklyn Bridge
is getting past the midpoint
when like you're on the Brooklyn side,
and it just like empties out,
and you don't have to share your bridge
with everybody and their brother anymore.
However, when bigger breezes
or the sound of an engine do hit, like on top of this ferry,
you can really hear the camera working
to keep out unwanted sounds.
Who said.
(engine drowns out speaker)
Give this a few firmware updates
or maybe a next-generation chip,
and I think it's gonna be incredible though.
The ZV-E1 has four stabilization modes,
off, standard, active, and dynamic.
Dynamic crops into the image quite a bit,
but utilizes the five-axis in-body stabilization
and electronic image stabilization
to create really stable footage.
I stayed in this mode for most of my testing,
but did change to the standard stabilization
when filming myself so I could get a wider shot.
Though at night, the stabilization can get a bit jittery.
Much like the mics, in three to five years,
I could see users no longer needing external gimbals at all.
And now, my two favorite gimmicks in the ZV-E1,
beginning with the one that I hate, auto framing.
Using subject recognition, the camera automatically
crops the frame to keep a subject in the center.
Much like Apple Center Stage,
the camera's movement feels completely unnatural,
and I just don't see a use case for this in my life.
A great gimmick on this camera, though, is CineVlog.
With the push of a button,
the camera puts a 2.35 to one aspect ratio on your footage.
It locks the frame rate at 24 frames per second.
It applies a creative look, which I kept at a Cinetone,
and it sets the autofocus transition speed to medium.
Help me, bud, I think I'm addicted to CineVlog.
No.
Everything looks 150% cooler
even if I have absolutely no use for 2.35 to one footage.
But is all of that enough to get content creators
who predominantly use their phones
to make the leap to a full-frame camera?
I think it ultimately comes down to more than image quality,
but here are side-by-side video samples
with the ZV-E1 and the iPhone 14 Pro.
At first glance, it's actually hard
to tell these two cameras apart,
but when you look a little closer,
you start to see that the details truly fall apart
with the iPhone still,
not to mention the depth of field you get
with a full-frame sensor.
And when it comes to filming folks faces,
holy cow, the iPhone just wants to even the image right out,
whereas, the Sony really holds onto the shadows.
It's just like the iPhone paints a picture
of what it thinks the world should look like,
whereas the Sony captures what is actually there.
The sunset was not that yellow.
The iPhone simply brightens everything up.
Like in these shots, it was getting dark outside.
The sky was a much deeper blue.
I am impressed with the iPhone's performance, though.
And once it starts to handle the shadows a bit better,
this competition could actually be viable.
For now, my larger concern with the ZV-E1
is its lack of consideration for vertical video,
and holy cow, its app is a mess.
Like, we need to get this together, Sony.
So I have spent the better half of the last decade trying
to convince all of my family and friends
to just shoot horizontally when they're filming video.
And I mean, even now, I'll admit
that most of the video I watch is vertical, nine by 16.
And with the ZV-E1,
there's just not a great way to film vertically,
unless you have a tripod that does that well,
or you're gonna hold it in your hand,
which I guess the image stabilization will help with that,
but I think what Sony could do is either create a mode that,
when shooting in 4K, you know,
puts letterboxes or crops to nine by 16, which yes,
then it wouldn't be 4K, but I mean, it's social,
I don't think you really need 4K.
Or if they put some sort of tripod mount
on the side of the camera, like a quarter-inch mount,
I think the FX3 has one,
so that you could just, you know,
mount your camera sideways on a tripod,
or I don't know, if a gimbal,
if you could balance it this way.
And now let's talk about the app.
Sony recently released the new Creators' App,
but even attempting to connect the camera to the app
before you even get to transferring images is painful.
In fact, I wasn't able to do it at all.
I kept getting this error,
and I mean, there's just like no accessories to even click.
And I'm not the only one with problems.
This new app has a 1.7 star rating in the App Store
with folks experiencing similar problems to me.
Sony should really take notes from GoPro,
and especially Insta360,
on creating a solid app experience.
They can literally teach the camera illiterate
how to edit 360 footage.
The least Sony could do is make an app
that can transfer images from a camera to a phone.
As a videographer though,
the ZV-E1 does a hell of a lot right.
Video straight out of the camera is crisp,
it is in focus,
and the camera does a pretty good job of recognizing a scene
and exposing for it properly.
And its small form factor allows you to take it anywhere,
turn it on quickly,
and get filming incredibly good footage with ease.
That is all right with me.
But you don't have to pay that much money
for a really solid entry-level full-frame camera.
The A7C came out two years ago,
and it has continued to be my go-to vlogging camera.
It is ever so slightly larger
but has a similar full-frame sensor,
a Sony E-mount for great glass,
and the added bonus of an EVF
for a more pro feel when you're using it.
All of the footage that had the ZV-E1 in it
was shot with my A7C that I'm using right now
that I've had for two years.
I love this system so much.
And better yet, you can get one used for like 1,500 bucks.
Now, you won't get the new AI processor unit,
you won't get the dumbed-down menu system,
you won't get gimmicks such as, you know,
the AI tracking feature or CineVlog.
God, I mean, you put two one on anything
and just, you have my heart.
For anyone that's just trying to dip their toe
in full-frame videography,
or you know, take a step up from their smartphone,
I think you should look at the A7C first.
In case you didn't know,
we have a Vergecast channel now, which is sweet.
You can actually see the voices behind the podcast.
Hope to be on there sometime soon, maybe.
I don't know.
And yeah, we're blasting off on TikTok, y'all.
I, you know, I am actually having a lot
of fun creating content over there,
so never thought I'd say that.
Anyway, I'm Becca.
I hope you're well, and we'll see you on the next one, buds.