GoPro HERO12 Black
Real Sensor Data
- Brand
- GoPro
- Sensor Format
- 1/1.7"
- Resolution
- 27 MP
- Pixel Pitch
- 1.24 microns
- Circle of Confusion
- 0.0062 mm
- Crop Factor
- 4.65x
- Announced
- 2023
Released in 2023, the HERO12 Black pairs a tiny 1/1.7-inch sensor with a fixed ultra-wide lens, a combination that pushes the hyperfocal-distance math this site is built around to its most extreme end — the near focus limit sits at a genuinely tiny fraction of a meter, meaning almost everything beyond arm's length renders sharp simultaneously without any deliberate focusing at all.
GoPro HERO12 Black sensor specs
- Sensor
- 1/1.7"
- Resolution
- 27 MP
- Pixel dimensions
- 6,000 × 4,500 px
- Aspect ratio
- 4:3
- Pixel pitch
- 1.24 µm
- Crop factor
- 4.65x
- Circle of confusion
- 0.0062 mm
1/1.7-inch sensor · DoF & Hyperfocal Calculator · Astro 500/NPF Calculator
The lens itself is fixed at roughly f/2.5, and GoPro offers several digital field-of-view crop modes — SuperView, Wide and Linear — that trim the sensor's usable area to correct or exaggerate the fisheye-style distortion inherent to a lens this wide. Switching between them changes the effective focal length and therefore the crop factor and circle-of-confusion figures above, so the specs listed here reflect the default Wide setting rather than every crop mode the camera offers; Linear mode in particular narrows the field of view enough to noticeably tighten framing compared to the numbers quoted.
HDR video recording, HyperSmooth image stabilization processing, and a more efficient Enduro battery all improved meaningfully over the HERO12 Black's predecessor — genuine software- and battery-side gains that extend usable recording time and handheld stability for action-sports work, layered on top of the same fixed-lens, small-sensor optical formula this page's depth-of-field figures are actually based on.
See these numbers used live in the DoF & Hyperfocal Calculator by selecting the 1/1.7" sensor format.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why doesn't a GoPro have an autofocus system like other cameras?
It genuinely doesn't need one — the combination of an extremely short real focal length and a small sensor produces such an enormous depth of field that virtually everything from a fraction of a meter to infinity is already acceptably sharp at a fixed focus setting, making autofocus largely unnecessary for the action-camera use case.