**A Comprehensive Review of the ZV-1 Camera**

The ZV-1 camera is an excellent option for content creators and streamers looking to upgrade their recording setup. In my experience, this camera has proven to be highly reliable and versatile, making it a great choice for various applications.

One of the standout features of the ZV-1 camera is its ability to adjust to different streaming resolutions, including 1080p, 60, 1080, 30, 4k, and 30. This feature allows streamers to seamlessly switch between different quality settings without compromising on video quality. Additionally, the camera's autofocus features are impressive, with the option to set it to "Eye AF" or "Face Detection," allowing for precise focus on specific subjects.

I have personally used this camera as a webcam, and I must say that it has been a game-changer for my streaming setup. However, I did experience some issues with the battery life, which died unexpectedly during use. This can be mitigated by carrying spare batteries or using an external power source.

**Recommendation for Content Creators and Streamers**

If you're looking to upgrade your recording setup and are willing to invest in a high-quality camera, the ZV-1 is an excellent option. Its features, such as autofocus, higher resolution, and clean HDMI output, make it an ideal choice for content creators and streamers.

However, if you're on a tighter budget or prefer not to spend a lot of money on a new camera, there are other options available that may be more suitable for your needs. For example, the Panasonic G7 is a 4K camera that can be had for around $400-$500, depending on the seller and market conditions. It's an excellent option for those who want a high-quality camera without breaking the bank.

**Alternative Options**

One alternative to consider is the ZV-1's webcam competitor, the sub $2R reviewed last year. This camera has some drawbacks, such as a smaller sensor and limited autofocus features, but it's still a solid choice for content creators on a budget. Another option to consider is the Sony A7S II or III, which can be had for around $800-$1000, depending on the seller and market conditions.

**Tips and Considerations**

When shopping for a camera, it's essential to consider your specific needs and budget. If you're looking for a high-quality camera with advanced features like autofocus and 4K resolution, the ZV-1 may be an excellent choice. However, if you're on a tighter budget or prefer not to spend a lot of money on a new camera, there are other options available that may be more suitable for your needs.

Additionally, it's worth considering the cost of lenses and accessories when shopping for a camera. The ZV-1 comes with a kit lens, but if you want better image quality, you'll need to invest in additional lenses. Similarly, the Sony A7S II or III come with a range of lenses available, which can be an added expense.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, the ZV-1 camera is an excellent option for content creators and streamers looking to upgrade their recording setup. Its features, such as autofocus, higher resolution, and clean HDMI output, make it an ideal choice for various applications. However, if you're on a tighter budget or prefer not to spend a lot of money on a new camera, there are other options available that may be more suitable for your needs.

Ultimately, the decision comes down to your specific needs and budget. If you want a high-quality camera with advanced features, the ZV-1 is an excellent choice. However, if you're looking for a more affordable option or prefer not to spend a lot of money on a new camera, there are other options available that may be more suitable for your needs.

**Recommendation**

Based on my experience and research, I highly recommend the ZV-1 camera for content creators and streamers. Its features, such as autofocus, higher resolution, and clean HDMI output, make it an ideal choice for various applications. Additionally, its compact design and lightweight construction make it easy to use and transport.

However, if you're on a tighter budget or prefer not to spend a lot of money on a new camera, the Panasonic G7 is an excellent alternative option. Its 4K resolution and clean HDMI output make it a great choice for content creators who want a high-quality camera without breaking the bank.

**Disclosure**

I'd like to disclose that I received this camera as part of a free review unit, courtesy of the manufacturer. However, my opinion on the camera is entirely my own and based on my experience with it.

I hope you found this article helpful in your search for the perfect camera for your content creation needs. Let me know if you have any questions or comments, and I'll be happy to respond.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis video that you're watching right now is being recorded on the sony zv1 camera it's sony's latest entry into the small form factor point-and-shoot camera line that does video and photos that has about a one-inch sensor and does not have an interchangeable lens so it's a mirrorless camera but you don't get to swap lenses on it it's got a pretty nice lens on it i've had it for about two weeks uh sony gave me a two week longer unfortunately for half of that time my baby has been very sick and so only had a little time to experiment my whole goal with picking up the zv1 to test out and check out was they announced that it will be shipping with at some point some pc software to use it as a webcam directly over usb so i sent that in my review request that i wanted to test that out unfortunately they sent me the camera and that software is not yet available so i'm gonna test it in terms of using it over hdmi as a streaming device but over usb software still doesn't exist so i can't really tell you anything about it as you can see here the zv1 is a fairly small compact and easy to set up and just go with camera which makes it perfect for vloggers content creators and alike including some really special features in here that i really hope sony ports over to their other future cameras because they are pretty killer but it does have some limitations due to its smaller form factor and things like that that i do want to discuss we're going to get into that after a word from this video sponsor so you've been searching hunting for that perfect stream element for that perfect layout that will make your stream truly professional looking but you don't have the budget once you find it well no more nerd or die is having a summer sale i was about to call it a steam summer sale they're not steam you can get 20 off store wide including their bundles of graphics using coupon code summer20 and my link in the description below you can get five dollar stream layouts and you can get their new clutch alert pack for super cheap as well to really supercharge your live stream today head over on to eposvox.gg slash nerd or die and use coupon code summer20 i'm impulsebox the stream professor and this is sony's zv1 it is an 800 mirrorless point-and-shoot camera that has a lot of features targeted at vloggers and content creators streamers and things like that that i'm really excited for it is very expensive for what it is given its limitations but in many respects it is the camera that i would have had it existed happily gone back in time and told myself starting out on youtube pick this up instead of messing with clunky dslrs and things like that because of the features in here and frankly if you can learn to live with the limitations and deal with whatever quality sacrifices you might make with it this could be like your one stop camera for a very long time couple specs real quick this is again a one inch sensor camera is a variable zoom lens with a variable aperture 1.8 to 2.8 ish i believe it can shoot up to 4k 30 1080p 60 or 1080p 120 fps which is pretty cool we're going to cover that in a little bit devs have a microphone jack does have a shoe mount for your microphone and what is this a flip out screen on a sony camera what yep it is quite nice fully articulating as you see on most other camera manufacturers way to go sony way to go my only real complaint with the physical build of it other than it's just small and awkward to hold size is the included tripod base where the tripod screw is the entire battery flap is completely covered so accessing your sd card because that's in the battery flap is rather a pain in the ass however they do have this handy little tripod selfie stick with it which has full controls for zoom taking a photo taking video locking it and then a single custom button to map to whatever you like this is extremely handy and it locks into place and otherwise you have buttons to adjust where it angles you can adjust the tension of it and then it fully breaks out here to a tripod to sit down and use as is now it is really handy and really convenient and it makes most other tripods and selfie sticks that you would get for a smaller camera like this seem kind of obsolete but it is a little short for what it is and especially given the minimum focusing distance on the lens is a little further away than you might expect it could be a little tough to use for some for that vlogging setup but it's pretty cool regardless so i do want to note that by default whenever you first turn on this camera it will have a skin smoothing face detection feature enabled by default that imo at least for my skin looks pretty terrible i accidentally left that on when recording my video that i used a while back about uh why twitch alternatives might fail and the makeup looking the caked on makeup look on me just didn't work and i'm actually a fan of skin smoothing effects and things like that overall now having turned it off in the menu i still feel like some of that is presented here in my skin but maybe that's a smaller sensor resolving this much detail and the over sharpening or what have you but i still feel like it's a little there however there is another feature that's turn actually there's two features that are turned off by default that you will want to turn on first is the high temperature recording mode by default it only lasts about eight minutes recording at 4k before it starts giving you heat warnings and it i tried recording that twitch alts video it was like a 20 minute record session overall and eventually by the end of it it just had completely shut down from overheating now they do have a high temperature operating mode i don't really know what the trade-off is or why you wouldn't want this on by default uh but that is something you'll want to turn on it still starts giving me warnings about five to eight minutes that it's getting too hot but i was able to record for more of a lengthy period of time without having to start over for that temperature setting so that's something at least yes even in a camera this small you will run into overheating issues at 4k and that's unfortunate i don't i it's a little better at 1080p um at least at 1080p60 and stuff but it's still kind of surprising how this issue continues to play virtually every camera on the market that isn't like a cinema camera with fans the other feature you'll want to turn on if you are a content creator and do things like i do with products and reviews and so on is they actually have a product showcase feature and this is what makes it almost the perfect a cam for a content creator for someone who does product reviews educational videos things show and tell videos where you want to hold something up because this camera has amazing autofocus like completely amazeball autofocus when it comes to tracking your face tracking your eye you can do the usual if you go into photo mode face register priority mode so that it will take a picture of your face and then it'll focus on that whenever you're auto focusing i can get rid of on it and it's going to keep track of me and pretty much always stay on my face like this auto focus is actually beating out my a 6400 at the moment which for whatever reason this did not used to be a problem but despite the fact that i am in the center of the frame i have face tracking for auto focus on and face registered to my face it's focused over here and there's like nothing i can do to get it out of focusing over here other than just restarting the camera gets really frustrating well as it turns out which i had originally knew and just forgotten at this point because i was using it fine with my atomos but the a6400 doesn't actually have face detect autofocus over hdmi when you're using a monitor or video capture option which is why going from my main setup where i'd sort of use it with the atomos but also sorta just recorded internally i had no problems and then putting it here with capture card suddenly my auto focus is acting up this is another huge advantage of the zv1 over an a6400 or my a7s ii or what have you because it will do autofocus over hdmi which is incredibly handy for streamers content creators webcam usage and so on i've never once had this issue with the zv1 but you get to combine that with a little slight emphasis on you holding something up and this works so incredibly smoothly i mean i mean watch this it is completely focused on my face ready to go you can see it kind of focus pulling or pulsing a little bit as i move or my hand comes up or whatever but then bam face product face product face with most autofocus systems it's still left hunting a little bit and it works on smaller products as well like i can just hold this up bam right back to my eyes and my face hold this up bam and so if you're doing a product showcase video where you're talking about a product you can just sit here and talk about the product it's going to stay mostly focused on the product maybe hunt your face sometimes and then it's back to your face i have noticed though there's a bounding box for the autofocus range that you can select i keep discovering it by accident and change like where those auto focus points activate and so by default in the center you kind of have to keep the products like within the you know inner third or half i guess a little bit more than half of screen space here in order for it to really work because if i like hold the product out here it's not really it's gonna stay on my face but if i bring it in ever so slightly we start losing using more and more focus to the product and of course it depends on the closeness to the lens too because focus back here if i hold it back here it's mainly gonna be like now you need your face if i bring it up like here that's like yeah hello products let's show off the retrotk2x the one product you should be buying for upscaling your retro consoles not a sponsored spot just wanted an example to talk about or drop it down back to my face tuck talk talk then i'm like bam i got a video game let's talk about that bam and we're back killer feature that seems really silly the number of times i've set here with my other like cameras and just been kind of like all right guys and then i'm talking about this product nope nope focus on this so i can show it and then put it down hello camera hello even right now as an example there we go if i get really close it's gonna focus on it and then come back to my face please nope it doesn't there we go it's back on my face good camera this is one of sony's better auto focusing cameras and it still doesn't have as much you know as good of an autofocus system as this tiny little zv one pretty impressive but you're gonna notice a bit of a quality differentiation here between this camera right here which is the a6400 and the zv1 now obviously there's an angle difference there's a closeness difference but in terms of depth of field in terms of actual like detail being resolved and uh in terms of light response as well this is a very small sensor compared to most of the sony cameras you see people using now if you're a user of the rx100 mark iv and those kinds of cameras this is basically in line with those but if you're someone who uses the a6400 a7s2 you know full frame aps-c style cameras the smaller sensor does come with some limitations and it starts to get to more of that kind of gopro-y look where the sensor just isn't quite big enough to make 4k look as clear and crisp and natural as it would on a bigger sensor and there is i mean in a sense this could be considered an action camera sensor because there are now the uh i think it's the in insta360 r camera the their little action camera they have a one inch sensor model now so like this isn't your big boy recording camera but i have seen other creators who do formal camera videos and gear review and stuff talk about that they switched to using this as their a cam and they're pretty happy because of features like the brilliant autofocus so you can just set it down and not have to worry about it as well as the product feature mode where you can just be like yeah i'm reviewing this and honestly if i had another set here like i have this for my main streaming and retro room talking set i have my stuff at downstairs that i don't use as much anymore since it's now a baby room basically but if i had a super basic background kind of setup for just a basic like product unboxing and showcase set which i may have in a future space we have this would be the camera that i go with because it's so much easier to just be like bam bam bam bam product face and you never have to think about it like virtually never in any of my time shooting with this camera and i've been trying to put it to the test do i ever find myself fighting with the autofocus and i'm gonna point you to a video by philip bloom about how and when video autofocus makes sense and when you should be using it and it comes down to when it gets out of your way and lets you work because if you're because if it's not like this close to being perfect it's almost unusable because in a like real shot that you're trying to work on if you have to keep retaking it it's wasting your time instead of saving it i fight a lot with all of my manual focus cameras on getting things right and all of that having something that i can leave set up like forever and just show up and know that every video i record is gonna have some autofocus and i'm gonna be able to talk about a product and then talk about my face and all of that and it'd be fine is a huge like godsend for this kind of productivity the good news is it does all of this over hdmi as well in fact this entire video has been recorded over hdmi into my normal retro room streaming rig i have been just sitting here switching scenes back and forth and using it as i normally would it's just plugged into a blackmagic capture card but does 4k30 1080p60 over micro hdmi micro hdmi kind of sucks but you can use this with a capture card even just with the 20 capture card that i've reviewed before or any of the cheaper capture cards i've been reviewing if you're interested in that because you're like whoa cam links are 400 why does this guy keep recommending them i have i have a playlist of cheap capture cards linked in the video description that's kind of my specialty reviewing them and then you have yourself the most amazing webcam you could possibly buy like comparing this to literally any webcam on the market this beats it by an infinitesimal long shot this thing is so freaking good like i cannot overstate it for that webcam context you've got a bigger sensor you've got higher resolution you have actual native 1080p or 4k video feed coming in which you can down sample to your feed you have autofocus that actually works worth a crap and you can use for really cool stuff the thing with webcam autofocus is that it has a minimum and a maximum focusing distance that goes from basically right up against the camera for the minimum to like a foot out at most which is still further than most people ever sit from their camera and everything past that point is infinite focus infinity focus which means it's all sort of kind of in focus but nothing's the subject and you don't get any real background separation or depth of field because it's just focusing on everything at once it's a big limiting factor of webcams among plenty of other things and with this you have full range i can be all the way back here and be focused on i can be all the way up on it this lens can also kind of act as a macro lens like i can literally i can put this up this is like an inch away from the lens if i switch to the other camera here you can't really see it i am like an inch away from the lens for it to be able to do this it's basically a macro lens on top of being everything else and it still has zoom so i can sit here now you lose aperture as you zoom in since it is a variable aperture lens so now the image is much darker you'll have to compensate that either turn on auto iso or adjust your iso as you go but now it zooms to about a 25.7 millimeter lens here and still has the autofocus kicking butt let's let's get this back out no one wants to see me this close i tried to mess around with photo taking with this camera just to experiment i for a dedicated photography camera i'd never really buy a camera with the small of a sensor but if it is your run and go cam running gun you know pocket go camera you would probably want to use it to take pictures on the go and for that it's probably fine i didn't get to use it a ton because the raw images out of it are not yet supported in lightroom which is surprising i know it's a brand new camera but i still didn't expect that um but overall i was relatively pleased with the images i got out of it it doesn't beat my 6d mark ii or a7s2 or anything but for what it is it's pretty good it's a point-and-shoot camera so my big criticisms of this camera for a content creator are the overheating issues which so far i have not encountered as much when using it as a webcam if that's your intention if you want to mount it up with a dummy battery and a hdmi cable and mount it up above your monitor or what have you you're going to have far less overheating issues than if you're having a battery in and writing to the sd card because both of those are things that build up heat and cause most of the overheating in the camera that being said you can still overheat it especially at 4k in those hdmi modes and i just encountered this during my last week's streamer news series and probably two weeks from now uh by time you're watching this and that my a6400 overheat and fully shut down in the middle of my streamer news show i've never had this happen before i've had multiple a5100s my a6400 and my a7s ii and they've all been able to be left on for like weekends or an entire week at a time on accident with one of my a5100s and at no point did they ever overheat or shut down or anything but they all had better air flow than my a6400 here currently has and so i think it was building up way too much heat and had nowhere for it to go so i'm gonna get like a little usb fan or something to kind of give it a little bit more room but if it's above your monitor somewhere where it's not this is literally a corner in a hot zone in my room you're mostly going to be fine and you get all of these advantages for streaming be it at 1080p 60 1080 30 4k 30 you know whatever you're streaming at it will adjust to and you get some fairly sharp incompetent video like i said well i thought this camera was making a fool of me and making me have to go back on everything i said because it turned off in the middle of using it over as a webcam and i thought it overheated but the battery just died that'll happen would i recommend this for content creators and streamers if you are someone who's getting into youtube looking for the right camera for you for making for vlogging for making content for making little product reviews and things like that as long as you aren't recording for hours on end at 4k yep this is beyond an amazing option due to all of those features if you're willing to pay the price for it if you are a streamer and you're happy to set it at 1080p and stuff this is probably a good idea i would definitely make sure you order from somewhere with a good return policy just in case overheating creeps up even at 1080p for you more so than it has for me because it seems to be kind of hit or miss who it really affects but between the mic input the clean hdmi output the higher resolution the crazy autofocus features it is a phenomenal value for those people if you're looking to do something for long time lapses or really long you know show recordings or presentation recordings or things like that i don't think this is the right choice and if you need a much deeper depth of field i guess this is shallower depth of field or a bigger sensor for kind of low light capabilities or you want a whole lot of detail resolved you're going to want to get one of the bigger ones and honestly that's where this price difference kind of makes things a little confusing for buyers admittedly because this is 800 that's a lot of money you could spend you can get a used a7s full frame camera for about 800 at least for the body you'll probably still have to buy lenses and stuff but then you have control over what lenses you're using and can get a lot better glass and things like that you could get a used a7s2 for not much more than that and in the right market probably not covid market but in the right market you could probably get a used a7s2 for 800 bucks especially once the a7s3 comes out um and so you could get significantly better cameras for that price if you're willing to buy loot used and you're willing to spend a little bit more at some point on more lenses and manage lenses and you don't want all these new features because we don't have any of these cool features for the autofocus and things like that on my a6400 and definitely not on the a7s ii and i've run into issues with their autofocus both respectively already so that's something to consider at the same time as a webcam option for 800 bucks this can be pretty compelling now you can get other cameras for a lot cheaper the a5100 already on its own you can get for at least half the price even with the marked up covered prices uh the panasonic g7 can be had for about 400 bucks still sometimes 500 bucks new on b h um and it's a 4k camera it never overheats in my experience like ever even recording internally so that's a more compelling option if you don't want the crazy autofocus features because it has autofocus but it's really not worth using most the time imo the g7 is the undisputed king of small mirrorless 4k video for that overheating aspect but you don't have good autofocus with it but when you compare it to a webcam competitor option like the sub 2r that i reviewed last year that was a webcam that costs 800 bucks doesn't have any autofocus has a smaller sensor than the zv1 has and is a lot more frustrating to manage because of all the manual settings and i even said in that review there's going to be a camera that at 800 bucks i recommend far better than this one keeping in mind you need a capture card with it because 800 bucks is much more in the real camera territory and lo and behold this would be like the perfect drop-in replacement for a webcam and for closer to 500 bucks i definitely think a lot of people would be willing to pay more i'll leave you with that think on it let me know what you think in the comment section down below or better yet over on discord eposvox ggs discord hit the like button subscribe for stream education uh check us out on flow plane i'll see you next timethis video that you're watching right now is being recorded on the sony zv1 camera it's sony's latest entry into the small form factor point-and-shoot camera line that does video and photos that has about a one-inch sensor and does not have an interchangeable lens so it's a mirrorless camera but you don't get to swap lenses on it it's got a pretty nice lens on it i've had it for about two weeks uh sony gave me a two week longer unfortunately for half of that time my baby has been very sick and so only had a little time to experiment my whole goal with picking up the zv1 to test out and check out was they announced that it will be shipping with at some point some pc software to use it as a webcam directly over usb so i sent that in my review request that i wanted to test that out unfortunately they sent me the camera and that software is not yet available so i'm gonna test it in terms of using it over hdmi as a streaming device but over usb software still doesn't exist so i can't really tell you anything about it as you can see here the zv1 is a fairly small compact and easy to set up and just go with camera which makes it perfect for vloggers content creators and alike including some really special features in here that i really hope sony ports over to their other future cameras because they are pretty killer but it does have some limitations due to its smaller form factor and things like that that i do want to discuss we're going to get into that after a word from this video sponsor so you've been searching hunting for that perfect stream element for that perfect layout that will make your stream truly professional looking but you don't have the budget once you find it well no more nerd or die is having a summer sale i was about to call it a steam summer sale they're not steam you can get 20 off store wide including their bundles of graphics using coupon code summer20 and my link in the description below you can get five dollar stream layouts and you can get their new clutch alert pack for super cheap as well to really supercharge your live stream today head over on to eposvox.gg slash nerd or die and use coupon code summer20 i'm impulsebox the stream professor and this is sony's zv1 it is an 800 mirrorless point-and-shoot camera that has a lot of features targeted at vloggers and content creators streamers and things like that that i'm really excited for it is very expensive for what it is given its limitations but in many respects it is the camera that i would have had it existed happily gone back in time and told myself starting out on youtube pick this up instead of messing with clunky dslrs and things like that because of the features in here and frankly if you can learn to live with the limitations and deal with whatever quality sacrifices you might make with it this could be like your one stop camera for a very long time couple specs real quick this is again a one inch sensor camera is a variable zoom lens with a variable aperture 1.8 to 2.8 ish i believe it can shoot up to 4k 30 1080p 60 or 1080p 120 fps which is pretty cool we're going to cover that in a little bit devs have a microphone jack does have a shoe mount for your microphone and what is this a flip out screen on a sony camera what yep it is quite nice fully articulating as you see on most other camera manufacturers way to go sony way to go my only real complaint with the physical build of it other than it's just small and awkward to hold size is the included tripod base where the tripod screw is the entire battery flap is completely covered so accessing your sd card because that's in the battery flap is rather a pain in the ass however they do have this handy little tripod selfie stick with it which has full controls for zoom taking a photo taking video locking it and then a single custom button to map to whatever you like this is extremely handy and it locks into place and otherwise you have buttons to adjust where it angles you can adjust the tension of it and then it fully breaks out here to a tripod to sit down and use as is now it is really handy and really convenient and it makes most other tripods and selfie sticks that you would get for a smaller camera like this seem kind of obsolete but it is a little short for what it is and especially given the minimum focusing distance on the lens is a little further away than you might expect it could be a little tough to use for some for that vlogging setup but it's pretty cool regardless so i do want to note that by default whenever you first turn on this camera it will have a skin smoothing face detection feature enabled by default that imo at least for my skin looks pretty terrible i accidentally left that on when recording my video that i used a while back about uh why twitch alternatives might fail and the makeup looking the caked on makeup look on me just didn't work and i'm actually a fan of skin smoothing effects and things like that overall now having turned it off in the menu i still feel like some of that is presented here in my skin but maybe that's a smaller sensor resolving this much detail and the over sharpening or what have you but i still feel like it's a little there however there is another feature that's turn actually there's two features that are turned off by default that you will want to turn on first is the high temperature recording mode by default it only lasts about eight minutes recording at 4k before it starts giving you heat warnings and it i tried recording that twitch alts video it was like a 20 minute record session overall and eventually by the end of it it just had completely shut down from overheating now they do have a high temperature operating mode i don't really know what the trade-off is or why you wouldn't want this on by default uh but that is something you'll want to turn on it still starts giving me warnings about five to eight minutes that it's getting too hot but i was able to record for more of a lengthy period of time without having to start over for that temperature setting so that's something at least yes even in a camera this small you will run into overheating issues at 4k and that's unfortunate i don't i it's a little better at 1080p um at least at 1080p60 and stuff but it's still kind of surprising how this issue continues to play virtually every camera on the market that isn't like a cinema camera with fans the other feature you'll want to turn on if you are a content creator and do things like i do with products and reviews and so on is they actually have a product showcase feature and this is what makes it almost the perfect a cam for a content creator for someone who does product reviews educational videos things show and tell videos where you want to hold something up because this camera has amazing autofocus like completely amazeball autofocus when it comes to tracking your face tracking your eye you can do the usual if you go into photo mode face register priority mode so that it will take a picture of your face and then it'll focus on that whenever you're auto focusing i can get rid of on it and it's going to keep track of me and pretty much always stay on my face like this auto focus is actually beating out my a 6400 at the moment which for whatever reason this did not used to be a problem but despite the fact that i am in the center of the frame i have face tracking for auto focus on and face registered to my face it's focused over here and there's like nothing i can do to get it out of focusing over here other than just restarting the camera gets really frustrating well as it turns out which i had originally knew and just forgotten at this point because i was using it fine with my atomos but the a6400 doesn't actually have face detect autofocus over hdmi when you're using a monitor or video capture option which is why going from my main setup where i'd sort of use it with the atomos but also sorta just recorded internally i had no problems and then putting it here with capture card suddenly my auto focus is acting up this is another huge advantage of the zv1 over an a6400 or my a7s ii or what have you because it will do autofocus over hdmi which is incredibly handy for streamers content creators webcam usage and so on i've never once had this issue with the zv1 but you get to combine that with a little slight emphasis on you holding something up and this works so incredibly smoothly i mean i mean watch this it is completely focused on my face ready to go you can see it kind of focus pulling or pulsing a little bit as i move or my hand comes up or whatever but then bam face product face product face with most autofocus systems it's still left hunting a little bit and it works on smaller products as well like i can just hold this up bam right back to my eyes and my face hold this up bam and so if you're doing a product showcase video where you're talking about a product you can just sit here and talk about the product it's going to stay mostly focused on the product maybe hunt your face sometimes and then it's back to your face i have noticed though there's a bounding box for the autofocus range that you can select i keep discovering it by accident and change like where those auto focus points activate and so by default in the center you kind of have to keep the products like within the you know inner third or half i guess a little bit more than half of screen space here in order for it to really work because if i like hold the product out here it's not really it's gonna stay on my face but if i bring it in ever so slightly we start losing using more and more focus to the product and of course it depends on the closeness to the lens too because focus back here if i hold it back here it's mainly gonna be like now you need your face if i bring it up like here that's like yeah hello products let's show off the retrotk2x the one product you should be buying for upscaling your retro consoles not a sponsored spot just wanted an example to talk about or drop it down back to my face tuck talk talk then i'm like bam i got a video game let's talk about that bam and we're back killer feature that seems really silly the number of times i've set here with my other like cameras and just been kind of like all right guys and then i'm talking about this product nope nope focus on this so i can show it and then put it down hello camera hello even right now as an example there we go if i get really close it's gonna focus on it and then come back to my face please nope it doesn't there we go it's back on my face good camera this is one of sony's better auto focusing cameras and it still doesn't have as much you know as good of an autofocus system as this tiny little zv one pretty impressive but you're gonna notice a bit of a quality differentiation here between this camera right here which is the a6400 and the zv1 now obviously there's an angle difference there's a closeness difference but in terms of depth of field in terms of actual like detail being resolved and uh in terms of light response as well this is a very small sensor compared to most of the sony cameras you see people using now if you're a user of the rx100 mark iv and those kinds of cameras this is basically in line with those but if you're someone who uses the a6400 a7s2 you know full frame aps-c style cameras the smaller sensor does come with some limitations and it starts to get to more of that kind of gopro-y look where the sensor just isn't quite big enough to make 4k look as clear and crisp and natural as it would on a bigger sensor and there is i mean in a sense this could be considered an action camera sensor because there are now the uh i think it's the in insta360 r camera the their little action camera they have a one inch sensor model now so like this isn't your big boy recording camera but i have seen other creators who do formal camera videos and gear review and stuff talk about that they switched to using this as their a cam and they're pretty happy because of features like the brilliant autofocus so you can just set it down and not have to worry about it as well as the product feature mode where you can just be like yeah i'm reviewing this and honestly if i had another set here like i have this for my main streaming and retro room talking set i have my stuff at downstairs that i don't use as much anymore since it's now a baby room basically but if i had a super basic background kind of setup for just a basic like product unboxing and showcase set which i may have in a future space we have this would be the camera that i go with because it's so much easier to just be like bam bam bam bam product face and you never have to think about it like virtually never in any of my time shooting with this camera and i've been trying to put it to the test do i ever find myself fighting with the autofocus and i'm gonna point you to a video by philip bloom about how and when video autofocus makes sense and when you should be using it and it comes down to when it gets out of your way and lets you work because if you're because if it's not like this close to being perfect it's almost unusable because in a like real shot that you're trying to work on if you have to keep retaking it it's wasting your time instead of saving it i fight a lot with all of my manual focus cameras on getting things right and all of that having something that i can leave set up like forever and just show up and know that every video i record is gonna have some autofocus and i'm gonna be able to talk about a product and then talk about my face and all of that and it'd be fine is a huge like godsend for this kind of productivity the good news is it does all of this over hdmi as well in fact this entire video has been recorded over hdmi into my normal retro room streaming rig i have been just sitting here switching scenes back and forth and using it as i normally would it's just plugged into a blackmagic capture card but does 4k30 1080p60 over micro hdmi micro hdmi kind of sucks but you can use this with a capture card even just with the 20 capture card that i've reviewed before or any of the cheaper capture cards i've been reviewing if you're interested in that because you're like whoa cam links are 400 why does this guy keep recommending them i have i have a playlist of cheap capture cards linked in the video description that's kind of my specialty reviewing them and then you have yourself the most amazing webcam you could possibly buy like comparing this to literally any webcam on the market this beats it by an infinitesimal long shot this thing is so freaking good like i cannot overstate it for that webcam context you've got a bigger sensor you've got higher resolution you have actual native 1080p or 4k video feed coming in which you can down sample to your feed you have autofocus that actually works worth a crap and you can use for really cool stuff the thing with webcam autofocus is that it has a minimum and a maximum focusing distance that goes from basically right up against the camera for the minimum to like a foot out at most which is still further than most people ever sit from their camera and everything past that point is infinite focus infinity focus which means it's all sort of kind of in focus but nothing's the subject and you don't get any real background separation or depth of field because it's just focusing on everything at once it's a big limiting factor of webcams among plenty of other things and with this you have full range i can be all the way back here and be focused on i can be all the way up on it this lens can also kind of act as a macro lens like i can literally i can put this up this is like an inch away from the lens if i switch to the other camera here you can't really see it i am like an inch away from the lens for it to be able to do this it's basically a macro lens on top of being everything else and it still has zoom so i can sit here now you lose aperture as you zoom in since it is a variable aperture lens so now the image is much darker you'll have to compensate that either turn on auto iso or adjust your iso as you go but now it zooms to about a 25.7 millimeter lens here and still has the autofocus kicking butt let's let's get this back out no one wants to see me this close i tried to mess around with photo taking with this camera just to experiment i for a dedicated photography camera i'd never really buy a camera with the small of a sensor but if it is your run and go cam running gun you know pocket go camera you would probably want to use it to take pictures on the go and for that it's probably fine i didn't get to use it a ton because the raw images out of it are not yet supported in lightroom which is surprising i know it's a brand new camera but i still didn't expect that um but overall i was relatively pleased with the images i got out of it it doesn't beat my 6d mark ii or a7s2 or anything but for what it is it's pretty good it's a point-and-shoot camera so my big criticisms of this camera for a content creator are the overheating issues which so far i have not encountered as much when using it as a webcam if that's your intention if you want to mount it up with a dummy battery and a hdmi cable and mount it up above your monitor or what have you you're going to have far less overheating issues than if you're having a battery in and writing to the sd card because both of those are things that build up heat and cause most of the overheating in the camera that being said you can still overheat it especially at 4k in those hdmi modes and i just encountered this during my last week's streamer news series and probably two weeks from now uh by time you're watching this and that my a6400 overheat and fully shut down in the middle of my streamer news show i've never had this happen before i've had multiple a5100s my a6400 and my a7s ii and they've all been able to be left on for like weekends or an entire week at a time on accident with one of my a5100s and at no point did they ever overheat or shut down or anything but they all had better air flow than my a6400 here currently has and so i think it was building up way too much heat and had nowhere for it to go so i'm gonna get like a little usb fan or something to kind of give it a little bit more room but if it's above your monitor somewhere where it's not this is literally a corner in a hot zone in my room you're mostly going to be fine and you get all of these advantages for streaming be it at 1080p 60 1080 30 4k 30 you know whatever you're streaming at it will adjust to and you get some fairly sharp incompetent video like i said well i thought this camera was making a fool of me and making me have to go back on everything i said because it turned off in the middle of using it over as a webcam and i thought it overheated but the battery just died that'll happen would i recommend this for content creators and streamers if you are someone who's getting into youtube looking for the right camera for you for making for vlogging for making content for making little product reviews and things like that as long as you aren't recording for hours on end at 4k yep this is beyond an amazing option due to all of those features if you're willing to pay the price for it if you are a streamer and you're happy to set it at 1080p and stuff this is probably a good idea i would definitely make sure you order from somewhere with a good return policy just in case overheating creeps up even at 1080p for you more so than it has for me because it seems to be kind of hit or miss who it really affects but between the mic input the clean hdmi output the higher resolution the crazy autofocus features it is a phenomenal value for those people if you're looking to do something for long time lapses or really long you know show recordings or presentation recordings or things like that i don't think this is the right choice and if you need a much deeper depth of field i guess this is shallower depth of field or a bigger sensor for kind of low light capabilities or you want a whole lot of detail resolved you're going to want to get one of the bigger ones and honestly that's where this price difference kind of makes things a little confusing for buyers admittedly because this is 800 that's a lot of money you could spend you can get a used a7s full frame camera for about 800 at least for the body you'll probably still have to buy lenses and stuff but then you have control over what lenses you're using and can get a lot better glass and things like that you could get a used a7s2 for not much more than that and in the right market probably not covid market but in the right market you could probably get a used a7s2 for 800 bucks especially once the a7s3 comes out um and so you could get significantly better cameras for that price if you're willing to buy loot used and you're willing to spend a little bit more at some point on more lenses and manage lenses and you don't want all these new features because we don't have any of these cool features for the autofocus and things like that on my a6400 and definitely not on the a7s ii and i've run into issues with their autofocus both respectively already so that's something to consider at the same time as a webcam option for 800 bucks this can be pretty compelling now you can get other cameras for a lot cheaper the a5100 already on its own you can get for at least half the price even with the marked up covered prices uh the panasonic g7 can be had for about 400 bucks still sometimes 500 bucks new on b h um and it's a 4k camera it never overheats in my experience like ever even recording internally so that's a more compelling option if you don't want the crazy autofocus features because it has autofocus but it's really not worth using most the time imo the g7 is the undisputed king of small mirrorless 4k video for that overheating aspect but you don't have good autofocus with it but when you compare it to a webcam competitor option like the sub 2r that i reviewed last year that was a webcam that costs 800 bucks doesn't have any autofocus has a smaller sensor than the zv1 has and is a lot more frustrating to manage because of all the manual settings and i even said in that review there's going to be a camera that at 800 bucks i recommend far better than this one keeping in mind you need a capture card with it because 800 bucks is much more in the real camera territory and lo and behold this would be like the perfect drop-in replacement for a webcam and for closer to 500 bucks i definitely think a lot of people would be willing to pay more i'll leave you with that think on it let me know what you think in the comment section down below or better yet over on discord eposvox ggs discord hit the like button subscribe for stream education uh check us out on flow plane i'll see you next time\n"