Smallest real 720p or 1080p P&S camera?

[kye]

I'm wondering what the smallest P&S camera is that shoots real 720p or 1080p (not line-skipped or pixel-binned and then upscaled).  If it has a zoom that would be even better.

My recent adventures with emulating 16mm film on my GX85 and the fun of shooting on the almost microscopic Kodak Charmera have made me start thinking about what the smallest 720p or 1080p camera (that isn't an action camera) might be, which I suspect will be a P&S.  During the P&S arms race I'm sure someone pushed the boundaries...

The Super-16 emulations I did with the GX85 made me realise that the DR of a rec709 camera is more than enough and that S16 is far lower than 1080p, and perhaps lower than 720p even.  The Charmeras is probably one of the smallest cameras around but isn't a P&S and its real resolution is only 720x540 so not real 720/1080p. 

The LX10/LX15 comes to mind of course and seems like a great camera but it's still quite pricey and I'd like to go significantly smaller again if I can.

Unfortunately camerasize.com isn't exhaustive with the hundreds (thousands?) of P&S cameras that got released, so some brands are missing (and you can't search by size).

My initial research shows turned up the below, but maybe there are some hidden gems?

It looks like the industry decided that 90-110mm wide and 55-60mm tall was perfectly fine and just pushed to go thinner?

Which, if any, of these are worth looking at?

[fuzzynormal]

My user icon here on EOSHD is a GM1 with a tiny Pentax A110 24mm prime lens on it.  Aside from using a flat-f8-body-cam-pancake-lens, this was as about as small as I ever got things.  Which was pretty small!

[Snowfun]

Sony RX0 is reasonably small. Not a zoom however and you might regard it as an “action cam” (albeit without stabilisation it isn’t!).

[kye]

On 7/26/2026 at 10:12 PM, fuzzynormal said:

My user icon here on EOSHD is a GM1 with a tiny Pentax A110 24mm prime lens on it.  Aside from using a flat-f8-body-cam-pancake-lens, this was as about as small as I ever got things.  Which was pretty small!

The GM1 is a seriously tiny camera..  how big is the Pentax lens on it?  Do you have any pics of the setup?

I have the F8 bodycap lens and it's tiny as well.  My GF3 is pretty small, especially when combined with the F8 pancake, but unfortunately if you analyse the image it becomes pretty clear that it's closer to SD than 720p, so nowhere near the 1080p it claims.

On 7/27/2026 at 2:35 AM, Snowfun said:

Sony RX0 is reasonably small. Not a zoom however and you might regard it as an “action cam” (albeit without stabilisation it isn’t!).

I had forgotten about that one..  if there was a Chamera Pro then that would have to be it, considering the lens FOV is somewhat normal compared to the UWA of action cameras, although it's still pretty wide compared to the Charmera (24mm vs 44mm).

An RX0 mk3 with one of the new 48MP smartphone sensors and all the cropping modes that come with it would be a fascinating camera, although at that point you'd just put an UWA 14mm lens on it and now you've basically made the latest GoPro line!

[kye]

I've been AI-ing, googling, and searching ebay, and it looks like there aren't any bargains to be had, although I can get a Sony WX30 for AUD200 / USD140 in great condition from Japan, and that's one of the smallest ones around (it's next to the GoPro on the left)..

Video quality doesn't look too bad either, especially if the reference is 16mm or 35mm film..

The "logic" of the larger camera is pretty deafening though.  

Looking at the below... why use the WX30 when the slightly-larger RX100 or LX10 give you 4K and a drastically nicer image, and then why use those when the slightly-larger L10 has the GH7 sensor and V-Log and codecs instead of rec709, and now you're shooting with a brick!

I realised I had a Lumix ZS20 sitting in a drawer and have now ordered a new battery charger and some new batteries for it, so that's a lot cheaper than a new camera and it's smaller than the LX10, especially when turned off.

The struggle is real though.

[BTM_Pix]

The LX10/LX15 is a solid little camera.

The big differentiator (aside from price) over the Sony 1” cameras is the f1.4 aperture at the wide end.

That comes with a couple of caveats in that it doesn’t stay f1.4 very far into the range and shooting in 4K there is a bit of a crop.

It takes my cinelike-D hack and I also put a magnetic filter thread on mine that enables you to put ND on it and/or in my case a Sony 2x TC that you can quickly pop on and off to extend the range.

These are some grabs from mine.

The top panel is lens at it’s widest, the middle is maximum zoom and bottom is maximum zoom with the TC on.

If you want to have one with a natural long zoom range on it then their other 1” from the time the TZ100 has a 10x optical zoom.

Can also take the cinelile-d hack.

[ac6000cw]

You could add the Sony ZV-1 to the list (original version, which has lens OIS) - it's basically the same size and weight as the RX100 V but more video orientated.

I own both the ZV-1 and an HX99 (which is tiny, shoots 4k up to 30p, with a pop-up EVF and a fantastic zoom range for a camera that small - helped at the long end by only having a 1/2.3″ sensor, of course).

Unless you really need the zoom range or EVF, the ZV-1 shoots better video (with a mic jack too) and very nice stills. You can also get a JJC stick-on 52mm filter adaptor for it - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07GWQ6CXL

(The Sony menu system will annoy you though if you're used to Panasonic cameras...)