The Sony ZV-E10 is an APS-C mirrorless camera with a 24.2 megapixel sensor.

It’s capable of 4k video at 30fps. It’s also capable of 120fps at 1080p

Unlike a lot of YouTube reviews of this camera, you’ll have seen, I haven’t been sent this camera, I’ve bought it with my own money. I bought the body-only version (without the kit lens) as I already had one. This cost £680/$700 and is $800 with the kit lens. SO certainly not the cheapest!

So is the ZV-E10 worth it? We’ll look at the specs, the camera itself, and its pros and cons to find out

Let’s start with what’s in the box.

The usual documentation you would expect, power cable. Wind muffler. Battery, charger and strap.

And then onto the body, its somewhere in size between the Sony a5100 and Sony a6000.

It has a horizontal flip out screen, which rotates to be used from either the front or back,

So all in all nothing spectacular, power cables and transformer, usb cable, wind muffler, strap, and a battery.

So the camera is a good size if you’re after a compact camera, and has some nice extra features and functionality. 

Here now are some examples of photography taken on the ZV-E10 with no post processing or editing.

Boy the Sony ZV-E10 on Amazon*

The things I like

The addition of 4k video and the high frame rate recording at 1080p is a massive upgrade from older cameras such as the a5100/a6000.

Also the inclusion of mic input, headphone jack, and USB-C connection. Just makes the quality of life a lot better as these things really make this camera a lot easier to use.

I’m a big fan of the tripod thread being out of the way of the battery door so it can be easily opened without taking off your tripod.

Also, love the big movie button it makes operation much quicker. And the Wide Telephoto zoom rocker, similar to that you get on the a5100 is great for use with a zoom lens, I’m baffled when cameras don’t include this.

Of course, it having an E-mount lens system means upgrading your lenses for different situations is easy, compared to the ZV1 vlogging camera with a fixed lens. Great if you already have a lens from the same ecosystem, I’ve really liked the look of the Sony 18-105mm f4 on this camera for video.

Also how much easier it is to Livestream or use this camera as a webcam is great, rather than needing separate software, you just plug the camera in via USB-C with streaming mode enabled and it will pick the camera straight up.

The things I don’t

The lack of EVF (electronic viewfinder) is always going to be an issue for a lot of people/ only being able to monitor your shots from the screen makes use in bright light very difficult.

This will have been omitted to save space and weight similar to the old a5100, and I can see why, if you’re using it primarily for video, the screen is fine for monitoring.

No shoot mode wheel. On most other alpha cameras the shoot mode wheel is on the top to swap between modes like aperture priority shutter priority etc and this has been omitted again to save space. The options are still there in the menus but.

I’m also not a huge fan of the button to switch between photo/video and slow and quick mode. As its a button rather than a switch swapping between them cant be done that quickly, a physical switch, similar to the on off switch would have been better. Then theres the whole conversation of whether slow and quick is a big enough feature to need its own button, but to be fair I have used it a decent amount.

The small NP-FW50 battery is a shame especially when the a6600 uses the larger capacity NP-FZ100. This again will have been to save space, but when recording 4k video you’ll eat up this battery pretty quickly.

And of course the jellying effect of the rolling shutter is a huge issue, why they thought this was acceptable on a vlogging camera im not sure, but if you wont be recording like this, then its not a huge issue.

Overall I’m happy with the purchase, I bought it because I wanted to upgrade to 4k, and liked the idea of the high-frame rate for certain shots. I’d been close to picking up the a6100 in the past, but I’m more of a video user and always default to using the a5100 in the past. So if you’re mainly a video user, whose looking to upgrade anyway then its a solid, if not perfect upgrade.

But in most cases if you already have a5100 or a6000 for the price at the moment anyway it may not be right… quite yet.

But the Sony ZV-E10 on Amazon*

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