My Sony ZV-E10 review of the interchangeable lens mirrorless camera. I’m a first-time owner of a Sony digital camera that shoots video. From a consumer perspective, my background in photography and video is I have a bit of experience with an old entry-level Nikon DSLR that only takes photos and I have been mainly shooting videos with my iPhone or iPad.

The Sony ZV-E10 Interchangeable lens mirrorless camera is the camera I’ve been waiting to come around that takes good quality photos, shoots 4k videos, and has an interchangeable lens.

Here are my impressions and honest Sony ZV-E10 review, the camera was released around July 2021 and targeted around content creators or vloggers.

Camera Build

• Sony ZV-E10’s light, compact body is well made, I believe the body material is made of magnesium alloy.
• Like the soft-touch grip on the right side of the camera
• Can easily be handled with one hand.
• Compatible with over 60+ Sony E-Mount lenses.
• Convenient tripod screw mount at the bottom, when the Sony ZV-E10 camera is mounted to the tripod, the system knows that is mounted to a tripod and shows in the menu system as a small icon.

Kit Lens

• 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6
• Focal length
• Little noisy when zooming in and out and sometimes can be heard when capturing videos

Microphone

• Built-in 3-capsule directional microphone works well when in front of the camera. There is a built-in speaker for playing back videos, the audio quality is not that great even on maxed-out volume.
• There is a 3.5mm slot if you want to use an external microphone
• There is also 3.5mm slot for the headphones. When you plug a headphone, it is quite sensitive and picks up a lot of noise but does not show in the video recording.
• There is an extra wind diffuser(windscreen) that you slide to the multi-interface shoe which works great for outdoor shoots.

Articulating Screen

• I like that the 3.0” screen has a vari-angle and is very handy since there is no viewfinder in this camera.
  • I can flip the LCD around for a selfie
  • When the camera is down I can tilt the screen to face me which is pretty cool when taking macros or odd angles shots
• The downside is that the screen is not have a touch menu, the LCD has limited touch capability which is used for the object tracking AF feature.

Menu System

• The menu system software is very comprehensive and has so many hidden gems in there
• Artistic Effect – add fun effects to your photos and videos like the creative style and picture effect… I like the Illustration effect a lot.
• Bit of fiddling with the scroller, fn, and menu buttons to work yourself around the system menu.

Shooting Modes

• Got shooting modes for almost everything if you don’t want to go manual mode
• 11fps burst mode
• Dedicated camera button
• Half-press the camera button to engage the AF

Video Modes

• 4k 30fps (cropped)
• 4k 24fps (not cropped)
• Full HD at 120fps
• Found out that the memory card should support UHS-I(Sandisk Extreme Pro) if I wanted to shoot 4k 24kfps/30fps at 100M
• Dedicated movie recording button
  • A red border shows on the LCD when the recording is active
  • Tally lights turn red when recording
• Capable of shooting vertical video

Sensor

• 24MP APS-C CMOS sensor
• Has 425-point fast hybrid AF
• Object Tracking and Real Time Eye detection AF

Product Showcase

• Quick autofocus transition when something is in front of the camera, I really like this feature.

Background Defocus

• Dedicated bokeh button switches to the maximum aperture setting on the lens to give that amazing bokeh effect.
• Not a huge difference with the kit lens which is why I ordered a Sigma 16mm f1.4 as my first lens to replace the kit lens.

USB Streaming

• No software is needed, turn on the USB stream from the camera and hook up the Type-C USB from the camera to your computer
• This replaces the default webcam for Facetime, Google Hangouts, and Teams and is super clear
• I tried to connect the Sony ZV-E10 to an iPad to see what would happen and it does not work as it is not supported

Battery

• The battery is not that good (NP-FW50)
• 125 minutes video
• 440 images
• There is a power brick that hooks up a USB Type-C port for the charging camera.
• No separate charger just for the battery
• Recommended to get an extra battery or get a power bank.

Wireless and sharing

• Wifi connectivity to transfer files to your mobile device for sharing online.
  • The setup is simple, download the Imaging Edge Mobile app, and you can transfer files from the camera, and also have the ability to control the camera from your mobile phone to take pictures and videos. Pretty cool.
• Bluetooth to connect the optional GP-VPT2BT wireless shooting grip

Soft Skin Effect

• I found the Soft Skin effect great when taking vlogs I can set the effect from low, mid to high, and makes me a bit younger and fresh.

What I don’t like

Summary of things I noticed and wish it had:

• I wish Sony ZV-E10 had a viewfinder
• The LCD is not that visible when shooting outdoors under the sun.
• When wearing polarised sunglasses the LCD is barely readable, to be fair that goes for most LCD screens.
• Everything now is touched enabled, having full touch optimized menu system could be great.
• When object tracking is enabled, the touch menu to cancel tracking is not that responsive. Easiest to disable tracking from the physical circle button.
• In the menu system, it is not very intuitive why a menu is showing disabled. Some menu gets disabled depending on which mode or settings have been configured for the camera. A bit of figuring out and exploring what needs to be changed.
• The battery is not that great on this model. Definitely would recommend getting a power bank or purchasing an extra battery.

Sony ZV-E10 Review Summary

That is my Sony ZV-E10 review. So, does the Sony ZV-E10 tick all the checkboxes from features, upgradability, and bang for the buck?

For me, yes it does. Really can’t complain much about this camera since I’m pretty novice and coming from my background this is a big upgrade. Overall I am happy with the purchase and the fact that it is cheaper than the ZV-1 and a6400 blows my mind. The microphone works well for my indoor vlogging needs. The video quality is pretty good that I decided to show my face when I now create my youtube videos on my tech channel.

The AF system on this camera is super quick and as mentioned with the lens being interchangeable I am now looking forward to my very first lens purchase to arrive.. the Sigma 16mm f1.4 to replace the kit lens to get the full bokeh effect.

Hope you found my Sony ZV-E10 review useful. Hit the comments below and check out the amazing deals from Amazon.

Sony ZV-E10 Product Manual Specs:

Checkout my Sony ZV-E10 unboxing video