George, Probably Blogs

Sony ZV-1

A picture of the Sony ZV-1

Since selling my Panasonic Lumix G7 (for reasons not related to the camera itself), I expected to avoid jumping into the dedicated camera space for a while. To be fair, I haven't. This is the camera I use as my webcam.

Now, you're probably thinking, "George, why are you using a £700 camera as your webcam???" and that's a fair question. The answer? Well, I found it for only £150 on eBay. Oh, you also want to know how I got the camera for nearly 1/5th the retail price? Well, it had been dropped pretty spectacularly (Sony does pitch this as a vlog camera, after all), and the screen had been sheared off. Along with that, there was no charger included (which isn't actually an issue, as it charges over Micro-USB).

For most people, that would make this camera a no-go, but I still had the external monitor I used with my G7 just in case I wanted to use it as an actual camera (I won't). More importantly than that though: the lack of a screen makes zero difference when I plan on plugging in an HDMI cable and running it to my computer as a webcam!

I honestly don't have anything I'd change about this purchase. Every time there's something I want to complain about (like how it gives me an error message to do with the lens but then proceeds to forget and work normally), I remember how little I paid for it, and I go on with my afternoon. It is a shame I'll never know how good of a vlog camera it is though.

Verdict: 9/10

Back to setup page

Looking for something?