- It is six grand US. (man groaning)
So many of you may have never heard of the lens manufacturers Zeiss,
or if you're into cameras, you will have known them for their legendary lenses.
But today we're talking about the ZX1,
which is Zeiss's new digital camera. Now Zeiss has made many film cameras in the past,
but this is their first digital camera. And it's a weird one because it also runs Android.
It's not the first camera that's ever run Android, and you can't install anything you want,
but it has a full Adobe Lightroom CC mobile on it,
and built-in Instagram and other ways to share things. Their slogan on the side of the box is,
shoot, edit, share. Right off the bat the packaging is really nice.
It feels very soft. It is exactly what a premium product should be,
which I would expect from Zeiss because they've been doing this for a long time,
at least with their lenses. Wow, this is a metal lens hood. That's nice.
You don't really see that very often, but we'll get to the price in a second,
this makes sense. Oh, this is kind of a funky way to do,
an instruction manual quick start guide.
It's like a little accordion (chuckles). So we'll look at the camera more in a second,
but let's see what's in the rest of the box. But before that,
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So I noticed right off the bat, that this camera already has pre-installed anchors,
where the straps would go. And so that makes me think that, "wow,
"it comes with a Peak Design camera strap, which is really cool.
If you don't know Peak Design, they make a lot of really cool camera strap,
a bit bags, camera accessories in general. But their strap is where they started.
And it's got this really cool locking mechanism,
where you just slide in the anchor, and you can put the strap on really easily.
And if you want to take it off, you just press it and you take it off.
So that this might be one of the only cameras
where you will use the strap it comes with,
because it's a strap that people actually buy. The strap is worth like $80, I think,
or something like that. Oh, and then it's even a little kit for an extra anchor,
and then a little tripod adapter with an Allen key. That's a very nice touch,
they clearly partnered with Peak Design, Type-C charger.
And you have a Type-C cable. What's this?
Oh, and you got a little Type-C to USB 3 adapter,
and its own little tiny Velcro pouch. This is the cutest poach I've ever seen.
Who does this? So let's take a look at the camera itself.
It's an interesting shape.
52 millimeter front filter adapter.
And a fixed 35 mm f/2 lens.
So, 35 mm is a good portrait
or wide angle, like medium wide angle, like landscape,
focal range. And this is a full frame sensor. It's 37.4 megapixels.
So this lens is pretty wide and pretty versatile, and it's a lens choice that I think a lot of people use
a lot of the time. 35 mil is one of my favorite focal lengths. It is fixed though.
So you have no option of taking this camera's lens off
and putting something else on. Zeiss designed this from the ground up.
They designed the camera body. This is their 35 millimeter Distagon lens which,
they are legendarily good at making, and the sensor as well.
Like the entire camera was designed in-house.
And the grip, feels
not bad. I have this weird spacing in between where my fingers bend,
which I think would get uncomfortable. So depending on your hand size,
it's a very like minimalist design, like the camera objectively looks nice.
And I think that Zeiss was definitely going for something that was very minimalist,
but had physical dials. You have physical dials on the lens.
Aperture dial. You have your shutter speed dial,
and your ISO dial, which is really nice. Any camera that can integrate physical dials
for each exposure setting, I am personally a huge fan of.
The touch display is 720P, and it's supposed to be as responsive
as your typical smartphone display. In theory, that's kind of what this entire thing is.
So on the touchscreen, they've made this like slidable control here,
where you can have your thumb and navigate the different settings in the camera
while not obstructing your live view if you're using live view. Or you could even do it through the EVF.
So when you look through the EVF,
you can touch the touchscreen, and still navigate the menu through the EVF,
even though the touchscreen actually goes off. So you see here.
And so when I'm touching the screen here, if you were able to see what's happening in the EVF,
you can still navigate the screen. Which is really cool.
And of course when you're trying to change it here, it's relatively responsive.
Oh, there's a little light. Okay. So not quite as good as
the best smartphones, but I would say this is one of the best touchscreens
on a camera that I've used, in a while. Oh, and the shutter is really quiet.
Can you guys hear that?
That is not loud at all. That's actually a pretty impressive. It's a leaf shutter in this camera.
The benefits to this, I guess, are things like it being quieter.
And it's just a completely different way to make your camera... Not that many cameras have a leaf shutter,
famously the Fuji X100 series has a leaf shutter as well.
But the biggest downside for me of a leaf shutter without getting too far into the technical details,
is that the shutter speeds are much more limited.
The highest shutter speed that you can use on this camera,
is one over 2000. And for a leaf shutter that's on the higher end,
but that's just the physical limitation of the way that the blades in front of the sensor
are designed, where you can't do a faster shutter speed than that.
So if you're shooting really, really fast action,
or you're trying to get a shot of like, a bird diving into water or something,
this is probably not the camera for you,
but for those of you who are okay with one over 2000 or lower,
then this camera would be a high performer in many other situations.
Man, this camera is so weird because normally,
you'd see like a bunch of dials and buttons and stuff like AF Lock or Record,
and all of that is done through the touchscreen. The only button you see is this one,
which can only... It's a custom button, but it can only be set to four different things.
Maybe they'll change that in a future firmware update, 'cause this is running Android.
So they have the ability to do a firmware update where they would add functionality to a button like this,
but for now, it only has four things available.
And then you have the little focus magnifier for the EVF.
There's a Type-C port on the left here. And then when we open the battery door,
there's a battery, but what's missing?
The SD card slot. So typically the SD card slot in the camera is,
right next to the battery. But in this camera, there is no SD card slot,
because it has a built-in 512 gig SSD.
Which is cool, but, I mean, you're stuck with 512 gigs.
That's probably enough, 'cause you'll probably just offload your photos,
and then share them, or like they want you to,
edit them on this camera and then share them from this.
Zeiss has designed a swiping system.
So this is how you get to your settings, where you can set raw JPEG.
That's cool. And then there's also video. So this (mumbles) can shoot 4K up to 30fps,
and 60fps up to full HD. Which is not amazing by today's standard.
So from gallery view, here's a photo of my cat,
you can get to the Android view, which gives you Instagram
and Lightroom built into the camera. Now, unfortunately, as far as I can tell,
the only Android apps that you can install on this camera are Instagram and Lightroom.
Which is great if you're a heavy Instagram user, but if you want to upload something like Twitter, Facebook,
or Snapchat, like, some other social media of any kind,
you should be able to install it and use it on this camera,
but there is no... When I go to the settings, there's no Play Store.
All you get is manual support tutorial, Instagram, and Lightroom.
You can connect Dropbox and Anes,
at home to this. So you can wirelessly transfer your photos from this camera
to ANES or Dropbox, and then access them that way.
But that seems like a sort of roundabout way to do this.
Why don't we try this camera, and take a couple photos of Colton,
and see what it's like from a professional user's perspective
and a amateur user's perspective. - Oh my gosh, and it's running like Android 9 or something.
- It's a little bit dated on the Android side. Maybe there's an over the air update sometime.
- It's probably not Android 9 I'm so... Or it might be. It might be Android 8.
This looks like Oreo or something. - [Lee] You can use the touchscreen
to navigate the settings on with the display off.
So you can touch the glass display right now, navigate stuff.
- Interesting. I don't like it at all.
(Lee laughs) Get out of here.
All right, Madison, like I said, scream.
(Madison screams) (man in cap laughs) - As someone who doesn't use cameras like this
most of the time, what did you think of this brief experience?
- Well, I guess I'm not the perfect example for that. Am I? Because I have used like DSLRs and stuff,
and I like kind of the tactile clickiness. I like having it feel
sort of like it's a professional thing. - So would you that this is two minimalist?
- You know what? It does make sense if the market for this
is the same people who buy like, - It's like obvious.
- The most expensive Tesla or like,
the iMac Pro 5K when they have absolutely no need for it.
- How much would you pay for this? - Oh, I'd probably pay
3000, 3,500. - 3500? - Yeah.
- It is six grand US. (man in cap groans)
So I'm gonna give this to somebody who's used cameras a lot and is a photo enthusiast.
We have Andy here. - Hello. The grip, like,
if you see this part, I'm still using my finger tip to grab the grip,
instead of have my whole hand on the grip.
There's like a gap, you see that? - [Lee] Yeah. - So I'm not a big fan of the grip.
I'm changing the ISO here. Unlike the other,
mirrorless camera, or you change the ISO the exposure on screen also, change.
But this thing, only if you have pressed the shutter.
- [Lee] Oh, you don't get a preview live? - [Andy] You don't get a preview live.
That's very strange. And then you can actually navigate the touchscreen
when you are looking through the EVF. So if you put your thumb here.
- Oh, it's got the little like circle type of thing. - [Andy] There's a little mouse thing.
Right now if I'm using my finger on the screen, I'm definitely like heating my face--
- Your face. - [Andy] Which is not great. Okay.
- Would you edit your photos on the camera? - Oh, that's tough.
'Cause editing a photo on a small screen, feels kinda a bit weird.
Especially when you shoot a lot of photo, and then you want to add it a batch of photo,
that's kind of, dumb. So how much would you pay for this camera?
- I'll probably just pay like four grand, 'cause because this is a Zeiss,
and Zeiss-- - They know how to make lenses, and they used to make good film cameras.
- And they're like still hired higher tier,
compared to regular Sony, regular Sony lens cameras.
- This camera's $6,000 US.
- Oof, that's a little bit harsh. - Okay, so we're back from trying the camera out.
Let's see how easy this photo is to get into Lightroom.
I could even just hit the Share button, right?
Share.
- [Lee] Oh, you can go to Facebook. So you have Dropbox, Flickr and OneDrive.
Okay. I mean, personally, even as someone who loves taking photos and does it all the time,
I don't really share my photos on Flickr. So that's a little bit of an odd decision.
And so the Share button actually doesn't take you into Lightroom, but I think just swiping down here.
And now we're in Lightroom . Go to All Photos.
So bring in one of the photos into Lightroom,
it's loading, loading... It's a raw photo. So I understand why might a little bit to load.
See if we can adjust the white balance easily.
I'll give Adobe credit. Lightroom mobile,
is fairly powerful because it's essentially Lightroom in a much smaller,
phone factor. But I will say right off the bat
that these sliders are a little bit on the annoying side to adjust,
'cause they're not easy to do, in like one degree increments.
The sharpness is pretty good.
Like me looking at the back of this display,
it's only a 720P display, but the sharpness on the back of this display,
is pretty good. Of course it might be better or worse
when you actually look at it on a computer or on any sort of bigger display.
But most things like this will probably look good on your phone,
because it's such a small display. I don't know if Zeiss has a winner here.
I understand that they designed this camera from the ground up, which is probably why it costs $6,000.
It's not easy to engineer something in-house entirely.
So it's a good achievement, respect Zeiss, you guys know what you're doing,
but I don't see a lot of people buying this camera. Because for the amount of money this costs,
there's just so many other options that I think would be better for most people.
But if you are one of the people who would buy this camera, let me know in the comments down below.
I hope more cameras in the future integrate smart features like this.
Maybe even to edit your photos on your camera, if you need to.
But to edit on such a tiny display while holding a heavy-ish camera,
isn't the most ergonomic experience.
And so I think that most people will skip this.
But, good job Zeiss for making something really different.
This is a camera that no one's really done to this level of engineering before,
but it does feel quite gen one. Thank you to BNH for sending us the ZX1,
and thank you guys for watching. If you want to watch another camera video, we recently-ish did a video on the Sony FX6.
And we have a video coming up on the Leica, SL2-S.