Sony ZV-E10

QUICKFACT SHEET

The Sony ZV-E10 is the big cousin of the ZV-1 Vlog Camera. While the latter is a fixed lens camera with a 1-inch image sensor, the ZV-E10 is a mirrorless camera (and therefore accepts interchangeable lenses) with a much larger APS-C image sensor (about 3x larger than the 1″ sensor in the ZV-1, and about 10x larger than the typical sensor used in a smartphone) which delivers much better image quality. Like the ZV-1, the ZV-E10 is first and foremost a vlog camera targeted to the needs of video-first content creators. It can be used by all kinds of content creators: from students, TikTok and YouTube creators, real estate agents, TV reporters, K-Pop artists, even journalists and demonstrators… a vlog camera that is simple, intuitive to use, effortlessly capable — and now, versatile.

Mirrorless APS-C
Since the Sony ZV-E10 is a mirrorless camera, you can attach any one of the over 60 superb Sony lenses, from a close up lens, an ultra-wide angle lens to a super telephoto lens.

Video: Sony E-Mount Lenses

Designed for Vlogging and Livestreaming
The ZV-E10 is based on Sony’s popular a6100 APS-C mirrorless camera but with a few important design changes to make vlogging and livestreaming easy out-of-the-box. It retains most of the specs of the a6100 (image quality, menu structure, etc.) but gains new vlogging features from the ZV-1 that make it much easier and intuitive to use when vlogging and livestreaming. For example, it has a Tally lamp and a Red Frame Marker on screen to tell you the camera is recording. A Directional 3-Capsule Mic with windscreen captures clear sound from every direction. A Product Showcase Setting smoothly shifts focus from your face to a product you want to showcase.

Product Showcase Setting
One of the best features of the ZV-E10 is the Product Showcase Setting when doing product reviews. What this does is automatically shift the focus from your face to a product you want to showcase. While other cameras will also do that, you have to make sure that your face is almost completely hidden. Since you would be most probably using Face/Eye AF when livestreaming, the camera will insist on locking focus on your face and when you put up a product to the camera, the AF will struggle to lock focus on the product if part of your face still shows. Sometimes, the camera may not even be able to lock focus on the product. This results in an unprofessional trial-and-error focus transitioning.

The Product Showcase Setting on the ZV-E10 solves this problem elegantly with just a press of the Product Showcase Setting button. Now, when presenting a product to the camera, whether your face is hidden or not, the camera smoothly and quickly locks focus onto the product. Remove the product from the camera, and the camera smoothly and quickly locks focus back onto your face. This works beautifully and if you do a lot of product showcasing, this one feature alone may well justify purchasing the ZV-E10 (or the ZV-1).

(For those of you technically-minded, what Product Showcase Setting does is, when it detects a product close by, it turns Face/Eye AF off so it locks focus immediately on the product. When it detects the product is removed, it turns Face/Eye AF back on and immediately locks focus back on your face/eye.)

Video: Product Showcase Setting

Fully Articulated Vari-Angle LCD Display
For both vlogging and livestreaming, a LCD display that faces forward is a must, and the 3-inch 921.6K-dot Vari-Angle LCD Display on the ZV-E10 is fully articulating, flipping out and rotating to face forward.

You can also easily set the AF (Auto Focus) point by simply touching the screen. This allows you to do smooth cinematic focus transitions (shifting the focus from a subject or object in the foreground to one in the background and vice versa) by simply touching on the screen where you want the focus to lock on. You can even select one of seven AF Transition Speeds, with 7 (fastest) being the default.

Video: AF Focus Transition

Note that you cannot use the touchscreen to select Menu items, functions or browse images. You can however double tap the screen to enlarge an image you are browsing.

There is no EVF (Electronic Viewfinder) and no pop-up flash.

Livestreaming Ready
If you want to purchase the ZV-E10 for livestreaming, good news! All you need to do is simply plug it into your Mac or Windows PC (or a Sony Xperia™ smartphone) using a USB Type-C cable, and you’re ready to go — no extra hardware, software or app to download, install and configure.

The ZV-E10’s battery provides up to 125 minutes of continuous recording. If your livestreaming session goes beyond that, you can plug in an external power bank via a USB Type-C connector to extend the life of the battery. If you intend to record long live video sessions, your best option is to also purchase the optional AC-PW20AM AC adapter and plug the camera directly into an AC wall outlet for unlimited power availability.

Soft Skin Filter
Not everyone looks their best when their face fills up the entire screen. The ZV-E10 allows you to cheat a little (or a lot): The Soft Skin Filter will smooth your skin’s appearance. There are three settings to choose from: LOW/MID/HIGH. We recommend that you keep to the LOW or MID setting, and reserve the HIGH mode for when you did not have time to slap any makeup on, but then be prepared for surprised colleagues commenting on your suddenly baby-smooth wrinkle-free out-of-this-world doll skin.

There are a couple more features on the ZV-E10 that are worth mentioning, but they do not necessarily make it a better vlogging or livestreaming camera. They are the Zoom Lever, Digital IS and Background Defocus.

Zoom Lever
With interchangeable lens cameras, you zoom by turning a ring on the lens barrel. That requires the use of two hands: one to hold the camera and the other to turn the zoom ring. But when you are vlogging, you are usually holding the camera in your left hand away from you. This makes it difficult to zoom.

The ZV-E10 solves this problem by giving you a convenient zoom lever around the shutter button (just like on the ZV-1 and other fixed zoom lens cameras) so you can just (with the thumb of the same left hand that is holding the camera) toggle the button to zoom when a power zoon lens like the E PZ 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 OSS power zoom kit lens is attached. (If you do not use a power zoom lens, this zoom lever can be repurposed to do digital zooming.)

If you mount the ZV-E10 onto the optional Bluetooth wireless shooting grip GV-VPT2BT, you can also single-handedly control the camera and the zoom from the controls on the grip.

While the Zoom Lever is a convenient feature to have when using power zoom lenses, it may not really be all that useful when vlogging or livestreaming. When you are holding the camera in front of you, you want to capture a wide-angle field of view so your viewers can see what’s around you. So, you would set the lens at its widest angle focal length. You will be rarely zooming in, except perhaps to do a zoom transition effect.

Digital IS
When you are vlogging, the walking motion will introduce camera shake and the video will be jittery. The ZV-E10 unfortunately does not have IBIS (In-Body Image Stabilization) to stabilize the image. Instead it has to rely on the OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) on the attached lens. It does have Active (Digital) IS which is an in-camera processing to try to stabilize the image.

With Active IS on, the camera uses part of the top and bottom of the image, at the cost of a hefty 1.44x crop. So with Active IS, and using the E PZ 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 OSS power zoom kit lens, this means that you are now shooting with a 35-72mm (equiv.) lens. That 35mm focal length is usually not wide enough to give a good coverage when vlogging.

Real estate agents thinking of getting the ZV-E10 for recording high-quality videos of houses for sale should consider seriously getting a gimbal for silky smooth image stabilization.

Background Defocus
Not everyone can have a clean background in their home studio or when you are walking in the street. Some software will digitally blur a distracting background but that usually comes at a cost and, if you move your head or arms too fast, weird artifacts display and parts of your body end up disappearing then reappearing.

The ZV-EV10 has a “Background Defocus” button easily accessible right on top of the camera. Press the button and the camera will open the aperture to its maximum setting — no filter or digital effect here, but real optical defocusing. Though you can achieve the same effect by manually selecting the maximum lens aperture yourself, it is so much more convenient this way.

This feature is specially great for still photography and when filming a static subject, and makes your subject pop from the background. Of course, the defocusing (bokeh) effect is most pronounced when you are using a lens with a large maximum aperture (e.g. F1.8 equiv., F2.8 equiv.). The E PZ 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 OSS power zoom kit lens has an F5.25 equiv. maximum aperture and that may not be large enough to give you the creamy blurred background that you may be after (and that the marketing brochures and videos promise).

Video: Background Defocus

There, we have covered the main features that differentiate the ZV-E10 from its competitors and that make it easier for vlogging and livestreaming.

Before we move to some of the things you need to know about the ZV-E10 before purchasing it, there is one more important feature that differentiates it from its competitors.

Best Autofocus Ever
If you ever wondered why Sony cameras have become so popular among both enthusiast and professional photographers, the reason can be traced back to this one technology feature: Real-time Face/Eye AF tracking that works admirably well, period. This single feature means that you just have to lock onto your subject’s eye once and forget about ever having blurred images again. Though other competitors also tout their Face/Eye AF, none can claim Sony’s level of precision and persistent “glue factor.” The ZV-EV10 has that superb Face/Eye AF tracking. Face/Eye AF are ON by default on the ZV-E10 so that your or your subject’s face and eyes are always in focus.

In addition, the metering also tunes in to the detected face, ensuring that your face is always correctly exposed as you walk from sunlight to shadows and back to sunlight again.

Video: Sony Face/Eye AF

Video Quality
Video is recorded in 4K/24p (no crop), 4K/30p (1.23x crop), and slow-mo effects can be done in 1080/120p (1.14x crop). The video is in fact recorded in 6K and downsampled to 4K for the best image quality.

The 4K/24P video quality is great as long as you are shooting videos of mostly static subjects who are not moving too fast. Otherwise the video may suffer from a rolling shutter (‘jello’) effect when a subject moves too fast or you pan the camera too fast.

The video quality when shooting slow motion FHD (1080/120P) is very soft but usable.

You get all of Sony’s Cinema Picture (Log) Profiles, except the latest S-Cinetone.

VIDEO: Slow motion video

So, who exactly would want the Sony ZV-E10? The ZV-E10 will appeal to professional content creators who love the vlog-friendly features of the ZV-1 — but their clients demand better image quality than what the 1-inch sensor in the ZV-1 can deliver. The APS-C sensor in the ZV-E10 fulfills that requirement.

Improvement Suggestions
No camera is perfect, and there is always room for improvements (we can almost predict what new features a forthcoming ZV-E10 II will have):

• Stacked Image Sensor. Sensor readout on the ZV-E10 is not as fast as it is in some of Sony’s latest model, resulting in rolling shutter (‘jello’) effect when panning or moving the subject too fast. A future ZV-E10 II needs to use a stacked sensor for faster sensor readout.
• IBIS (In-Body Image Stabilization). For a camera “designed from the ground up” to be held in one hand while you are walking about, it is surprising that there is no IBIS to stabilize the image. You’ll have to depend on the OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) that’s available on some of Sony’s lenses. For videos, there is electronic/digital IS (Active Stabilization) but it comes with a hefty 1.44x crop.
• Built-In ND Filter. The very useful built-in ND Filter of the ZV-1 is unfortunately not present in the ZV-E10. If you plan to use the Background Defocus feature, then the camera will open the aperture wider, adjust to a faster shutter speed — resulting in jittery videos. You will need to purchase an ND filter to get the desired slower shutter speed.
• Full Touchscreen Functionality. Though the 3-inch Vari-Angle LCD display is a touchscreen, you can only do Touch AF and Touch Shutter. You will not be able to select Menu items or browse images. Standing in front of the camera, it is quite awkward and difficult to reach around the back of the camera to press buttons that you cannot see.
• Higher Resolution Display. The LCD Display has only 921.6K-dot resolution at a time when competitors have 1.44M-dot or more. A Vlog camera depends on its LCD (do I have the exposure right, is the composition correct?) and it makes sense to have a display with the most resolution possible. It would help also if the LCD does not blow out in bright sunlight.
• More User-Friendly Menu. The ZV-E10 does not get Sony’s latest and more intuitive Menu implementation.
• Weather-Proofing. The ZV-E10 is not weather-proof, limiting your vlogging only to fair weather conditions.

More affordable ultra wide-angle lenses.
For vlogging walk-abouts, you want a lens with a wide enough angle to include yourself and some of the surrounding.

The ZV-E10 is sold with the E PZ 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 OSS power zoom kit lens. Since the ZV-E10 is an APS-C camera, you need to factor in a 1.5x crop factor, so that lens has in fact a focal length of 24-75mm (equiv.). The 24mm wide-angle focal length when recording at 4K/24p is a bit tight for vlogging. This is the same complaint photographers had with the ZV-1 with its 24-70mm (equiv.) fixed zoom lens.

A further problem arises when you decide to record at 4K/30p. There is a 1.2x crop factor that is further applied, giving the lens a 29mm equiv. wide-angle focal length, and now, that’s almost unusable for walk-about vlogging with the camera held at arm’s length.

Of course, the whole idea of the ZV-E10 being a mirrorless camera is to allow you to select an appropriately ultra wide-angle lens. If you want a zoom lens, you can get the Sony E 10–18 mm (15-27mm equiv.) F4 OSS APS-C Ultra-wide Zoom Lens, priced at US $899.99. If you do not need a zoom lens, another option is the Sony E 11-mm (16.5mm equiv.) F1.8 (US $499.99).

Sony should introduce at least one more ultra wide-angle kit lens (zoom not required) that is affordable.

Conclusion
The strength of the Sony ZV-E10 is that you can just pick it up (being so compact and light), turn it on, and start vlogging or livestreaming right out-of-the-box at a very affordable price. You get great image quality for most of the things you’ll be shooting. It’s a perfect camera for content creators: livestreaming, product showcasing, and casual vlogging.

If you are just starting out, and do not currently have anything set up, then I would recommend purchasing the camera with the Sony E PZ 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 OSS power zoom kit lens because it is currently the best one-stop option and you’ll save money by buying them together as a kit instead of separately. You’ll be ready to go as soon as you unpack the Sony ZV-E10 and kit lens from its box. Plus, being a mirrorless camera, you leave yourself the flexibility to purchase and attach other lenses later (such as the Sony E 10–18 mm F4 OSS APS-C Ultra-wide Zoom Lens or the Sony E 11-mm F1.8).

Happy vlogging and livestreaming!

Don’t need interchangeable lenses? Then, consider the Sony ZV-1 Vlog Camera.

SONY ZV-E10 SPECS AT A GLANCE (JUL 27, 2021)
TYPE:	MIRRORLESS, APS-C
SENSOR RESOLUTION:	24.2MP	SENSOR TYPE:	APS-C CMOS
LENS:	SONY E	ISO:	100-32000, 50, 51200
FOCUS:	425 POINTS; STILLS: HUMAN, ANIMAL; MOVIE: HUMAN	AF SENSITIVITY:	EV-3 – EV20 (F2.0)
VIEWFINDER:	N/A	LCD:	3-IN. 921.6K DOTS, VARI-ANGLE TOUCH
I.S.:	STILL: N/A; MOVIE: DIGITAL	VIDEO:	4K/30P/24P, HD/120P/60P/30P/24P
SHUTTER:	1/4000 SEC. – 30 SEC.	X-SYNC SPEED:	1/100 SEC.
CONTINUOUS SHOOTING:	11 FPS	STORAGE MEDIA:	MEMORY STICK DUO/SD (UHS-I)
MICROPHONE:	3.5MM DIAMETER STEREO MINI JACK	HEADPHONE:	3.5MM DIAMETER STEREO MINI JACK
CONNECTIVITY:	WI-FI, BLUETOOTH, MICRO USB TYPE-C, MICRO HDMI
OTHER:	INTERVAL SHOOT, BUILT-IN ND FILTER, FACE PRIORITY AE, AF TRANSITION SPEED, VERTICAL MOVIE, MOVIE EDIT
DIMENSIONS:	115.2 X 64.2 X 44.8 MM (4.54 X 2.53 X 1.76 IN)	WEIGHT:	343 G (12.1 OZ)
PRICE:	US $699.99 / CAD $900	BUY:	SONY ZV-E10

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Related Links:

• Sony ZV-EV10 Press Release
• Sony ZV-EV10 Technical Specs
• Sony ZV-EV10 Instruction Manual
• Sony ZV-EV10 Software & App Download

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• Sony ZV-E10 Mirrorless Camera

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