This is one of the few areas where action cameras genuinely struggle compared to smartphones and mirrorless cameras. The small sensor size limits how much light each pixel can collect.

What you can do to improve low-light performance:

- Shoot at 24 or 30 fps, not 60. Lower frame rate means each frame gets more light.

- Lock the ISO at 800 or lower. Letting ISO auto-float to 3200+ produces noisy, mushy footage.

- Use a lower resolution. 1080p at low ISO often looks better than 4K at high ISO because the larger effective pixel size collects more light.

- Add light. A small LED panel or even a bike headlight makes a dramatic difference. A $15 LED panel does more for night footage than a $300 camera upgrade.

- Color-grade in post. Low-light footage tends to look flat and noisy straight out of the camera. Noise reduction and contrast adjustments in editing software can salvage surprisingly usable footage.

What you cannot fix:

- No action camera at any price will match a full-frame mirrorless camera in low light. The physics of sensor size are absolute.

- Heavy noise reduction in-camera trades noise for smearing. Decide which you dislike less.