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...)

[fuzzynormal]

The GM1 is long gone, but here's the tiny a110 lens:

FWIW, my wife and I made a doc 10 years ago using the GX7 and the GM1 (with a different lens).  It was fun.  I did use the a110 primes I have for a short film.

Finally, I also have the a110 Pentax film camera and have started shooting with it just for kicks.

[Andrew - EOSHD]

On 7/26/2026 at 10:40 AM, kye said:

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.

Real 1080p on compacts is a unicorn. None of them do it, they are all pixel binning the 1080p and 720p.

There's a wide variance in binned image quality though - some pixel binning techniques get close to native res 1080p.

Pixel binning works well on the RX100 M1/M2, these use a good sampling method. Cleanest 1080p for the price, with the fast aperture zoom and the size is as small as it gets.

The RX100 M4 or newer got the fast stacked sensor, so they CAN do a full pixel readout for 4K, no crop, but the 1080p is still binned.

LX15 I can recommend as an all-round stills compact with 4K, but it still cannot sample the full width for a full pixel readout, the 4K is a crop and the 1080p is binned. I never used it for 1080p so can't vouch for the binning quality. I always 4K'ed it.

On 7/26/2026 at 10:40 AM, kye said:

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?

 

[PannySVHS]

Afaik the RX100 MK3 has downsampled HD and a 50Mbit codec.

From my own experience HD on the LX15 feels too brittle for my taste, compared to a G6 or G7. Same goes for the GX85. @Andrew - EOSHD

4K on the LX15 is looking nice when graded. So my recommendation as well. @kye Beautiful 8bit 709 image, which makes me think we should do another 8bit challenge. It's been 7 years since the last one.:)

@fuzzynormal How is focussing on the 25mm Pentax 110 lens? Looks like it would be very fiddely. Built like plastic and not so fantastic?

[kye]

4 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

Afaik the RX100 MK3 has downsampled HD and a 50Mbit codec.

From my own experience HD on the LX15 feels too brittle for my taste, compared to a G6 or G7. Same goes for the GX85. @Andrew - EOSHD

4K on the LX15 is looking nice when graded. So my recommendation as well. @kye Beautiful 8bit 709 image, which makes me think we should do another 8bit challenge. It's been 7 years since the last one.:)

@fuzzynormal How is focussing on the 25mm Pentax 110 lens? Looks like it would be very fiddely. Built like plastic and not so fantastic?

If the camera shoots 4K then you'd be silly not to, and I was really looking for the smallest 1080p camera, not the smallest 4K camera, but I did include a couple for reference so that's my fault for not being clear.

I guess really this thread was a bit of a fantasy that I could trade spec for size, but we all know that's not how it works.

Even 10 years ago the tech was there to make a camera with a GoPro sized body and a P&S lens on the front.  I have one of my daughters old cameras - a Fujifilm J20 from 2009, which is an SD P&S but it's just under 20mm / 0.79 inches thick and has a 3x optical zoom lens.
This is the J20 pictured with a fake SJ4000 action camera, which is basically the size of a GoPro.

Combine these and they could have make a 1080p camera with 3x optical zoom in a body thinner than a GoPro and by making it slightly wider they could have made room for the battery and given a little grip to hold it with.

Given that it might have been a big seller back then, I was hoping they'd be a forgotten classic and around for a couple of hundred, but really it's just a fantasy.

The idea is the "smallest 720p or 1080p P&S camera" not the "highest resolution P&S camera".  

Sensible people don't want the best specifications available in the camera so large they can only just operate it, they want the nicest possible shooting experience with a camera that has the spec they need for their given situation.

[PannySVHS]

I treat the LX as camera for HD delivery. From my experience, it's the best ratio between size, quality, ergonomy and used market prize for good quality HD. GM1 with a 14mm is thicker, more expensive and handheld video turns out jittery very easily due to its tiny body not being equipped with a stab.

I have tested the video side with my slightly taller GM5 and it's not fun to use for video. The stabilized 12 to 32 zoom makes it thicker than I like to for considering it over a GX85. The LX15 has lens stab, which works in 4K as well for holding steady, panning and tilting. HD on it is just too brittle for my taste so I see it as a 4K4HD cam.

My two cents. Nice talking to you again, kye.:) @kye