The GoPro Missiion 1 Pro ILS is due this September and it’s a pretty odd sort of camera, a kind of fusion between GoPro’s action camera sensor technology and interchangeable lens cinema cameras. It will use a Micro Four Thirds lens mount but GoPro’s existing 1-inch type sensor. What’s interesting, though, is what this small sensor can achieve – 8K 60p and 4K 240p video, or 8K 30p and 4K120p in open gate mode. These are insane specs in a $699/£599 camera.
This combination of resolution, frame rates and price is only possible because the Mission 1 Pro ILS uses a comparatively small 1-inch type sensor. ‘Small’ is perhaps unfair, because this sensor size is also used in the new Sony RX-10 V, a camera receiving the most extraordinary adulation right now, and the remarkably popular Canon PowerShot G7X III. Nobody complains about these having ‘small’ sensors.
Of course, no-one expects a 1-inch type sensor to yield the same image quality as a full frame hybrid or cinema camera, but the few full frame cameras that can compete with the GoPro’s specs are massively more expensive.
The interesting technical point here is that smaller sensors make possible things that larger sensors struggle to achieve, and they do it at a price point that’s in a different dimension.
Here’s another example. The DJI Pocket 4 also has a 1-inch type sensor, can shoot 4K video at up to 240p, incorporates its own in-built gimbal stabilizer and really does fit easily in a pocket. If you decide to go for a regular mirrorless hybrid instead, you’ll have to quadruple your budget to get anywhere near those specs and even then you won’t get that level of stabilization without a separate, heavy and awkward gimbal.
This isn’t just a battle between small-sensor action camera tech and ‘proper’ full frame cameras. There are formats in between. Take the Panasonic Lumix GH7, for example. The MFT format is often overlooked by photographers who think its day is gone, but here is a sub-$2,000/£2,000 hybrid mirrorless camera that can shoot 25MP stills, 4K 120p, internal Apple ProRes RAW and unlimited 4K 60p recording times thanks to active cooling. These are very expensive features, where you can find them, in the full frame world.
There’s a lot of snobbery around sensor size. People are paying a lot of money for full frame hybrid video cameras that struggle to match the capabilities of smaller formats. Smaller sensors have faster readout speeds, faster frame rates, they are easier to stabilize and come in smaller, cheaper and more practical camera designs.
Filmmaking is not simply about ‘cinematic’ quality, whatever people think that is, but practicality and cost-effectiveness too. The camera doesn’t make the film, you do. Very often, a smaller-sensor video camera is not just cheaper but a lot, lot better at the job you want it to do. It might just surprise you with its video quality too.
Quality is important. Of course it is. But not if it comes at a cost you can’t afford in a camera that can’t do the job you want it to.