Sony ZV-E10 II review: a small, but powerful camera for content creators
The best hybrid camera under $1,000
🏆 Review score: 4.5 out of 5
🏅Editor’s Choice
Pros:
✅ 📹 New sensor enables 4K60p video with only a slight crop
✅ 🎨 10bit color for all video modes thanks to the image processor
✅ 🗜️ Larger grip for better handling
✅ ⚖️ Electronic image stabilization is much improved
✅ 🔋 Added Sony Z battery greatly improves this camera’s longevity
Cons
❌ 🤖 Lacks Sony’s latest AI subject recognition
❌ 🫨 Electronic shutter can create images warped by the rolling shutter effect
Shortcut Review
The Sony ZV-E10 II is a plucky little camera that gives you many of the benefits of Sony’s pro-grade hybrid cameras but for a more reasonable $999 price (or $1,099 with a kit lens). It features the same 4K60p capable sensor as Sony’s higher-end a6700 and FX-30, plus the same long-lasting Z-batteries to boot. It has some great video features oriented for content creators including vertical menus and product showcase mode for whenever you want to feature something in front of your face. It doesn’t have all the latest tech (i.e. AI), but with great image and sound quality, plus access to S-Log3 and S-Cinetone, you can grade all your footage the same as you could with a professional video camera.
Full Review
✊ Better grip. The Sony ZV-E10 II features a larger grip that makes grasping this tiny camera a lot easier than its predecessor. The bigger handle also makes way for a larger battery, but more on this later, and the SD card slot now gets its own dedicated slotted access on the camera’s left side.
📱Touch controls to swear by. Controls overall are minimal on a camera this small, but you have all the essentials you need, like an electronic zoom rocker, a product showcase shortcut, and a background defocus button. Sony also continues to have the best thought-out touchscreen shortcuts to change autofocus priority, focus modes, focus zones, record, playback, and more.
🖼️ Pro-grade image sensor. The Sony ZV-E10 II comes rocking the same 26-megapixel backside illuminated sensor as Sony’s more pro-grade FX-30 and a6700 crop sensor cameras. The new sensor is much improved since it no longer crops video while shooting at 4K30p, and there’s only a slight 1.1x crop while recording 4K60p. However, the ZV-E10 II has also lost its mechanical shutter in exchange for a fully electric one, so you might notice some rolling shutter-induced wobbling while shooting any fast-moving subjects.
📹 Finally, a real pro video camera. The Sony ZV-E10 II’s jump to a Bionz XR processor, instead of just X, has also given it 10-bit color while recording video in all modes. That helps greatly with recording better color and HDR overall, plus it makes S-Log3 recordings much more flexible to edit in post.
🐇 Fast AI-less autofocus. Sadly, the Sony ZV-E10 II lacks the AI processing unit that boosts the autofocus speed on the Sony ZV-E1, our favorite Sony camera, and the a6700. Still, though, I found the camera’s on-sensor phase detection autofocus to be fast enough. It’s smart enough to recognize the faces and eyes of people and pets, which is what most people are going to be capturing with a camera at this price point.
📦 Product Showcase. One nice addition is Product Showcase, which is especially for my job of featuring tech products up close. It’s a feature that basically forces the camera’s autofocus system to prioritize objects closer to the lens rather than faces and eyes. I wish the ZV-E10 also got Sony's Auto Framing mode, which allows the camera to crop the frame as you move around, a bit like Center Stage on Apple devices. With Auto Framing, the Sony ZV-E10 II could have been the total package for content creators.
🤳Made for social sharers. Speaking of content creation, the Sony ZV-E10 II also sports a new vertically oriented menu for whenever you shoot 9:16 content for TikTok or Instagram. It saves me a lot of the hassle of trying to read menus sideways, and I can’t wait for this feature to make its way to more Sony cameras.
🎙️ Best built-in microphone. The Sony ZV-E10 II has one of the best microphones built into the camera. It’s a three-capsule microphone, so you can pick between picking up sound from in front of the camera, behind it, or all around. I usually have to plug in my wireless DJI Mic 2 system into a camera for unboxing videos, but the microphone is so good on the ZV-E10 II that I can skip that step.
🔋 More energy, more passion. Remember the bigger handle I mentioned at the top of this review? Well it’s also bigger to fit Sony’s larger Z batteries. They extend the battery life of the Sony ZV-E10 II to shoot about 600 RAW images and almost two hours of 4K60p footage.
Should you buy the Sony ZV-E10 II?
Yes, if…
✅ 🤳 You want a pocket-sized APS-C camera to bring everywhere.
✅ 📹 You want a video camera with incredible colors straight out of the camera or edited from S-Log3
✅ 📲 You shoot largely vertical content for social media
✅ 🎙️ You want a camera with a great built-in microphone
No, if…
❌ 📷 You want a camera with a bigger full-frame sensor (get the Sony ZV-E1 instead)
❌ 🔍 You want a viewfinder when it’s too bright to see the screen (get the Sony a6700 instead)
❌ You want to capture fast action without distortions from the electronic shutter (get the Sony a6700 instead)
Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.