SONY ZV-1 II

This sequel does little to distinguish itself from the original

- Gareth Bevan

www.sony.co.uk £869 / $898

The Sony ZV range has been around for a while, having first been introduced to serve the rapidly growing vlogging and social content-creation market. The ZV range offers small and compact systems that are designed to produce better-quality content than the smartphone in your pocket. Sony kicked off the range with the ZV-1, and just a few years on we have five unique cameras in the lineup. Sony has now released a sequel to that original camera, the ZV-1 II, although looking at the specs sheet, it's more of a revision than a revolution.

Key features

The main new feature is the ZV-1 Il's wide-angle zoom lens, an 18-50mm optic that's designed for vlogging and selfies at its wide end, while the 50mm focal length is ideal for portraits and product shots. The lens offers its maximum aperture of f/1.8 at the wide end, but drops to f/4 when zoomed. The ZV-1 II is not image-stabilised, but offers Sony's Active digital stabilisation for smoother footage with a slight crop. Behind the lens, the camera has auto-tracking, including Eye AF. for both humans and animals.

The ZV-1 II has a built-in 3-capsule microphone for better sound recording, which can intelligently switch the direction of recording from 'all directions' to 'front' when the camera recognises a human face in the frame. The camera also has digital noise reduction, as well as a windscreen included in the box. The ZV-1 II has plenty of features to make vlogging faster and easier, including the option to select from five 'Looks' and four 'Moods' to change the overall style of your video without any complex editing. The ZV-1 II also has a Cinematic Vlog setting that sets the camera to Cinemascope and 24fps for professional-looking video at the touch of a button. These can all be controlled with new touchscreen menus, which Sony claims are more intuitive than ever before.