The Sony ZV E10 is one of the bestselling cameras in the world for content creators, but at this point, it’s almost 3 years old, so is this camera really beginning to show its age or is it still a viable option?
Even in 2024 or beyond, you have to just press record. The Sony ZV E10 was released in May of 2021.
What’s clear is this camera was still flying off, so it’s approaching that three-year mark and over those past three years.
The zv E10 was Sony’s bestselling camera, at least on the US Amazon Market as well as in the country of Japan.
That’s all I can find clear data for at the moment. The shelves in 2023 and is still a sought-after camera in 2024, that’s due to first and foremost the price point at just under $700 for body only.
Sony Zv-E10 Camera Review:
In Sony Zv -E10 very hard to find a camera that performs this well for that same price point. You get really solid image quality.
Coming out of this camera as well as a pretty decent feature set that’s also really simplified in a simple user-friendly body. This makes the ZV E10 an overall really solid value.
What’s crazy about this camera is that it’s kind of a repackaged version of the Sony A6100, A6400, and A6600 series of A6000 cameras. They just used a lot of the same parts and the same sensor from those cameras and plopped it into the Sony Zve E10.
So, at the smallest, the sensor technology in the Zve E10 is at least 5 years old. In the world of tech, it feels like an eternity, so how does this camera hold up in 2024 should you pick it up, should you be somebody who goes out and purchases this camera, or should you wait for this camera to get updated here shortly?
The first group of creators that I think this camera is still decent for in 2024 are people who just make YouTube videos, kind of like this one right here.
Sony Zv -E10 Image quality & 4K video quality:
You get pretty solid image quality straight out of the camera with this without a lot of effort. If you just leave this camera in kind of the standard shooting modes. You honestly can produce a pretty good image. You also get 4k video out of this camera at both 24 and 30 frames per second.
There is a little crop at 30 FPS but that 4K resolution kind of future-proofs this camera a little bit and allows you to have reassurance that you won’t need a different resolution.
Here shortly, one of the cool features of the E10 is its product showcase mode, where you bring an object towards the foreground of the camera lens. It will automatically focus on that product if you were doing kind of product reviews or product placement sorts of videos; it focuses on that seamlessly and when you move that object away from the camera lens.
It’ll focus back on your face smoothly so it has good autofocus the product showcase mode is really neat; you have 4K video.so I think this is great for people who make YouTube videos.
Sony Zv-E10 is good for Photography:
It also is a pretty solid photography camera if you’re running a YouTube channel. You need to have YouTube thumbnails so you can take high-quality photos with this camera. This is the same sensor as the Sony a6400; everybody thinks that’s an awesome photo camera. It is a great photo camera, so you get the same photo quality out of this you’re just lacking the viewfinder that the a6400 or the A6600 has.
Would have so in short if you’re creating standard YouTube videos kind of like this one right here that is between 5 and 20 minutes in length. I think the E10 is still a great option.
Sony Zv -E10 For Vlogging:
This camera is also great for people who want to Vlog in 2024. especially those of you who want a super lightweight and simple setup for vlogging. I currently have the ZV E10 on the Joby gorilla pod with the 20 mm f1.8 Sony lens and the DED D4 mini as my mic Source.
The setup still feels super lightweight like I could carry it around all day with no issue. A couple of notes there is no in-body stabilization with this camera but it does feature active steady shot.
Which is software stabilization which helps you get more cinematic and smooth footage. When vlogging however turning on active steady shot adds like a 20% crop into your image so if I was vlogging right now on this 20mm lens. It would be like this it’d be way too tight so you’d have to use something like an 11 mm focal length to be able to use an active steady shot.
There’s also a cool feature in this camera called background defocus so with one click of a button it forces my camera l to shoot at its minimum aperture value so now we’re shooting at f1.8 instantly and I just had to adjust my ND filter a little bit to get proper exposure but now everything’s nice and blurry in the background.
it just really helps isolate yourself from the background. We’re just hanging out at the park today as a family and the ZV E10 is just always a no-brainer to bring along because it’s so lightweight and easy to use.
Sony Zv -E10 is good for Live streaming:
The third and final kind of creator that this camera is still good for is for anyone who does some sort of live streaming. So, this could be Gamers this could be people who take video calls for their business or maybe you work remotely and you have to take a lot of remote Zoom calls.
This is such a great option because you only need one cable a simple USBC cable running from your camera directly into your computer and you have everything you need to run a smooth live stream.
Even though this camera uses the older npfw 50 Sony battery that’s super tiny the battery performance of this camera is pretty solid and performs pretty well overheating.
It’s not a camera I would recommend you stream for hours and hours on end you’re going to get 8 hours of streaming capabilities out of this camera but if you’re someone who does moderate streaming for 1 to two hours or video calls for 30 minutes to an hour you should have no problem using the zve E10.
Things to consider on Sony Zv -E10:
Who is this camera not necessarily optimized for I think first and foremost if you’re someone who wants to maximize the log shooting profiles or the color science of your Sony camera.
This is not the camera for you it’s just quite a bit of an older sensor with not the best image quality or dynamic range so if you’re someone who needs to maximize the best optimal sensor performance the best image quality the zve E10 is not it’s also just a really simple camera.
if you’re someone who likes the ability to sort of customize your cameras a little bit more and have more features.
This camera is really simple and it’s designed intentionally for that reason but if you’re someone who needs that extra customization this isn’t the camera for you then of course there’s the big elephant in the room the fact that the zv1 Mark I is rumoured to come out sometime in the next couple months probably.
We’re recording this in March of 2024 so it’s rumoured that maybe this spring we’ll see the zv E10 Mark Il and that camera I bet is going to have quite a few improvements over the original ZV E10.
I guarantee we’re going to see an updated sensor something that’s probably more in line with the Sony a6700 or the fx30 that updated color science updated resolution.
we’ll also see probably some AI features that Sony has been including in some of their latest camera releases so that we’ll have like AI autofocus tracking and eye tracking different subject recognition so whether you’re shooting like an animal or a car or a human.
It can kind of detect these different subjects it will probably feel like a similar upgrade so when the a6700 came out and replaced the a6600. It felt like a very significant upgrade so I think the same will be true for the zve 10 Mark II.
if you’re willing to wait until the Mark I come out it could be a good fit for you or you could look at the used camera market for an original Zve E10 and pick one up closer to the $500 price range which could make the original zve 10 a little bit more attractive.
