Wave Frame Compact Camera

Details

A pocket camera with a one-inch-type sensor, a bright 24 to 72 mm zoom and three physical dials, so exposure can be set without opening a menu. Files are plain JPEG and open-standard raw on an ordinary SD card. The number a compact camera is sold on is the megapixel count, and the number that actually decides the picture is the sensor area, which almost no listing prints. A phone with a 1/1.7 inch sensor has about 43 square millimetres of silicon. This has 116. That ratio, not the pixel count, is why one of them works indoors after sunset. Beside that sits interpolation, where a sensor is read at 20 MP and the file is written at 40 or 64, and stabilisation claimed as a stop count without saying whether it is a moving lens group, a moving sensor, or a software crop. So the sensor is given in millimetres and the stabilisation is named.

• Sensor: 1 inch type stacked CMOS, 13.2 x 8.8 mm of active area, which is 116 square millimetres. About 2.7 times the area of a good phone sensor, and that is the specification that matters
• Resolution: 20.1 MP, 5472 x 3648, at a 2.41 micron pixel pitch. 13.2 divided by 5472 is 2.41 microns, so the figures agree. There is no 40 MP or 64 MP mode, because there are not that many photosites and upscaling one is not photography
• Lens: 24 to 72 mm equivalent, which on a 2.73x crop factor is 8.8 to 26.4 mm actual. f1.8 at the wide end to f2.8 at the long end, 9 aperture blades, 10 elements in 9 groups with 4 aspherical
• Stabilisation, named: OPTICAL, a shifting lens group, rated 5 stops to the CIPA method. There is no in-body sensor-shift unit in this camera and none is claimed, and no electronic stabilisation is applied to stills. For video it is optical plus an electronic layer that costs about 8 percent crop and can be switched off
• Shutter: a leaf shutter in the lens, 1/2000 s mechanical and 1/32000 s electronic. A leaf shutter syncs flash at any speed, which is a real advantage of this design and is stated rather than left to be discovered
• Video: 4K 3840 x 2160 at 60 fps in H.265 10-bit 4:2:2 at 150 Mbps, 4K at 30 fps at 100 Mbps, 1080p at 120 fps at 100 Mbps. Each with a frame rate and a bitrate, in plain MP4 and MOV
• Sensitivity ISO 125 to 12800, extendable to 25600, and the extension is labelled as an extension
• Battery 1,250 mAh at 7.2 V nominal, which is 9.0 Wh. CIPA rating 340 frames, and CIPA is measured with the screen on, one frame every 30 seconds and the flash on half of them, so ordinary mixed shooting is nearer 520 frames. Continuous 4K 60 video runs 85 minutes, a draw of 6.35 W. Three figures, and the method behind the first one
• Storage: one SD slot, UHS-II. 150 Mbps is 18.75 MB per second, so UHS-I V30 is enough for recording and UHS-II is there to clear the burst buffer. Stated, because a card requirement is usually implied rather than explained
• Screen 3 inch tilting touch at 1.04 million dots, plus a 0.39 inch 2.36 million dot OLED viewfinder. USB-C, micro HDMI and a 3.5 mm microphone input
• Every feature is unlocked at purchase. No subscription, no paid unlock, no cloud account, and no feature removed in an update. Firmware updates until July 2031
• Phillips screws throughout with no glued panels, and a service manual free to download
• The honest trade is reach and low light together. f2.8 at 72 mm on a one-inch sensor is a real limit: indoors at the long end you will be at ISO 3200. A larger sensor would fix it and would not fit in a jacket pocket
• There is no Shuunnya service-centre network. A warranty claim means sending the camera to us, with no turnaround time promised