alright so i built a 7inch long range rig about six months ago mainly for fpv cruising but ive been wanting to get actual usable footage out of it rather than just the DJI O3 feed which is fine for flying but not exactly cinematic. the bird can handle another 400-500g easy, maybe a bit more if i tune the PIDs right and accept slightly mushier handling.

im looking at the whole ecosystem of small cinema-ish cameras and gimbals and honestly its a mess. the sony ZV-E10 with a pancake lens and a Gremsy or similar 3-axis gimbal puts me right at the edge of my weight budget but the image quality would be insane for what this thing is. on the other hand the Insta360 SMO 4K on a lightweight gimbal is way less total weight and the stabilization is surprisingly decent, plus no lens to worry about.

i dont do paid work, this is just for personal projects and maybe some landscape stuff at my cabin. so the ROI calculation isnt really about money, more about whether the extra complexity and weight of a proper mirrorless payload is actually worth it vs just getting really good output from a smaller fixed-lens camera. curious what people who have actually flown both types think, not looking for spec sheet comparisons i can google those

honestly for personal use and landscape stuff the SMO 4K or even the GoPro hero line on a decent gimbal is probably the pragmatic call. ive flown a stripped Sony A6000 setup on a heavy lifter before and the footage was gorgeous but the whole thing was such a pain ? longer preflight checks, more things that could go wrong, recalibrating after every hard landing. when you just want to go fly and get nice shots without the overhead, a fixed lens small cam with good stabilization gets you 80% of the quality with like 30% of the stress.

that said if you really care about color grading latitude and shooting in changing light conditions the mirrorless sensor just destroys small action cams in dynamic range. so it depends what you actually plan to do with the footage i guess.

the Gremsy T1 is pretty well regarded for smaller mirrorless but its not cheap and you'll spend a few sessions just getting CG right before it flies nicely. also worth checking if your FC can run a gimbal control wire because having the gimbal tilt respond to your stick input makes a huge differnce for actually composing shots vs just hoping the angle works out. a lot of people skip that step and then wonder why their footage feels static