By Yadira B. Arnold 
Content creators have become an important segment of the mirrorless camera industry, and Sony fully embraced them with the launch of the ZV1 camera. Since then, no less than four models have been added to its ZV range, most recently the 12-megapixel full-screen ZV-E1-by far the most powerful model.
It uses the same sensor as the 3, 500 A7S III, a video-oriented camera that is a miracle even in low light conditions. However, the ZV-E1 costs 1, 300 less, so, of course, some important functions are not found, such as an electronic viewfinder (electronic viewfinder), two high-speed card slots, a mechanical shutter and some body controls.
At the same time, the ZV-E1 has some features that the A7S III surprisingly lacks. Most of them are in the field of AI and are very useful for vloggers, such as automatic framing, advanced subject recognition and dynamic stabilization. With the combined sensor and AI functions, it’s not a spoiler to say that this camera is a mini A7S III and a powerful vlogging camera at the same time. The large number of advances also makes it a technological tour de force.
The sensor may be the same, but the ZV-E1 is drastically different from the A7S III. Instead of the classic mirrorless A7 shape from Sony, the matter is chunky and chunky like an A6700 or a full-screen A7C. It is also significantly smaller and weighs one third less than the A7S III at 483 g, making it the smallest full-frame camera from Sony to date.
Sony boasts that it is made of recycled plastic, which makes the camera significantly inexpensive and less grippy than the A7 series. The handle is also smaller, but I was still able to get a reasonably firm grip given the lower weight. Despite the low-end materials, it is resistant to dust and moisture.
As we have seen on many newer cameras, there is a switch for photos, videos, as well as slow and fast, and each has its own settings. It has a distinctive red capture catch on the top and like Sony’s other mirrorless vlogging camera (the APS-C ZV-E10), it has a zoom rocker for supported zoom lenses and also works with Sony’s “digital zoom” feature.
Apart from that, it is compared to the A7S III. Although there are some vlogging-specific catch’s like the product show matter and the background defocusing, there is only one dial at the top (back) and no dial at the front – which makes it difficult to operate the camera with body controls in full manual mode.
However, the ZV-E1 is one of the first cameras from Sony that can be used entirely via touch controls. Most of the important settings (shutter speed, aperture, ISO, etc.) can be changed in this way, and you can also change the display settings by swiping left or right. And of course, the LCD is completely suitable for vloggers, even if it has a slightly low resolution of 1,030 K points.
While the A7S III’s 9.44 thousand-point electronic viewfinder is the best on the market, there is no viewfinder on the ZV-E1. I missed this function when striking in good weather, but the electronic viewfinder has a “sunshine” mode that automatically maximizes the brightness.
It uses the same battery as Sony’s flagship models, so you get a generous 95 minutes of 4K 30P video recording and 570 photos on one power. Fortunately, the USB-C Gen 3.2 port allows you to power while recording, and also supports high-speed transfers.
Along with the headphone and microphone ports, it has a microphone port instead of a full-size HDMI port, which is not ideal for a vlogging camera. It only has a high-speed UHS-II card slot. Oddly enough, the lack of a fast type a CFexpress slot does not seem to limit video recording compared to the A7S III.