Sony ZV-1
Also known as: ZV-1, vlogging compact
A compact camera built for talking to camera, with a flip screen and decent audio, used for the pieces an action camera cannot record.
Updated
What it means
The ZV-1 is a vlogging compact rather than an action camera. A one inch sensor, a flip out screen and a microphone arrangement aimed at speech put it in a different job entirely.
In an action context it covers what mounted cameras cannot: the piece to camera at the trailhead, the explanation at the van, the conversation that gives a highlight somewhere to start.
Its advantage over a sealed body is almost entirely audio and framing. Being able to see yourself and record intelligible speech is what a Front screen and a decent microphone buy together.
How it works in practice
Using it deliberately for talking and leaving the action to mounted bodies is the division that works. Trying to make it do both means risking the camera and getting worse action footage in exchange.
Matching frame rates across every camera in the session matters here as much as anywhere, since mixed rates cut together badly and resolving it afterwards means retiming rather than trimming. Agreeing a Frame rate (fps) before filming takes one conversation.
Recording a short piece at the start of a day is the habit worth keeping, because a highlight with somebody saying where this is opens far better than one that begins mid action.
What to watch out for
It is not weather sealed and not built for impacts, so treating it like an action camera ends badly for the camera rather than for the footage.
A one inch sensor is also well behind a full frame body in poor light, so Low-light performance limits it to daylight and well lit interiors in practice.
Built in microphones still lose to wind, so a piece recorded outdoors without a Windscreen (dead cat) has exactly the problem a mounted camera would have had. The screen helps the framing and nothing about the audio.
How RawClip handles it
Clips containing clear speech are handled differently from camera audio that is mostly wind: cut points avoid words and the music steps back under them. Footage from a camera built for talking therefore contributes more than a mounted body usually can.