Sony ushered in something new with its ZV series of cameras, call them what you will – vlogging cameras, travel cameras, YouTube cameras, but there is certainly a demand for smaller cameras with bigger capabilities, so much so that they apparently made up almost half of Sony’s camera sales last year.
The first generation of ZV cameras offered a lot of potential but managed to trip over a few hurdles on their way to greatness. The ZV-E10 especially uses a sensor that probably should have been marked for retirement, but instead left the camera struggling with hefty crop factors on 4K footage and poor streaming performance. However, if Sony had learned anything was a little unclear after the first ZV camera to get a follow-up, the ZV-1 II did little to move the needle, and in fact, I prefer the original.
