GoPro Mission 1 Pro review: the 8K pocket cinema camera you can take anywhere
Not the everything camera, but more than a GoPro Hero action cam
🏆 Review score: 4/5
🏅 Editor’s Choice Award
✅ Pros
🎥 8K pocket cinema camera with a much larger 1-inch 50MP sensor
🎞️ Flexible open-gate 8K30 and 4K120 video
🐌 32x ultra-slow-motion mode records frame-by-frame action
⚙️ GP3 processor enhances video with 10-bit HDR color and lighting
💾 Higher quality 240 Mbps, GP-Log2 recording format
🧠 🎙️ Four onboard microphones work together to cancel out noise
❌ Cons
📷 Lackluster still photo quality
👾 Slow-motion movies cause image quality to take a hit
The Shortcut Review
The GoPro Mission 1 Pro is a fantastic pocket cinema camera, but it isn’t the everything camera I was hoping for. Its strengths lie completely in video, not a shocker, but I was hoping this camera would be decent for stills, especially given how much GoPro has been marketing it as a point-and-shoot with its optional Grip mount. Your iPhone or Android phone takes better photos than the GoPro Mission 1 Pro, you’ll see much better dynamic range and detail from whatever is in your pocket now.
Now, for shooting video, the GoPro Mission 1 Pro is impeccable. It can record open-gate video in all sorts of resolutions and frame rates from 1440p at 480fps to 8K at 30fps. The new 1-inch sensor and GP3 processor afford this camera a much higher detail and HDR-capable 10-bit format with a higher 240Mbps bitrate for video recording. At the same time, GoPro has greatly improved on its stabilization, producing almost gimbal-steady footage, and the four on-board microphones do a fantastic job of cutting out noise.
The GoPro Mission 1 Pro is a huge step over the GoPro Hero 13 Black, making its $699 price ($599 for Quik subscribers) well worth the $200 upgrade over a regular action camera. This is a great option if you want to try amateur filmmaking while still having a camera rugged enough for adventuring.
Full Review
📱Not a smartphone camera replacement. I had high hopes that the GoPro Mission 1 Pro would be a spectacular stills camera, but it doesn’t best the smartphone in your pocket right now. Both 50MP photos and even GoPro 12MP SuperPhotos look drab, lacking the dynamic range and detail that smartphones capture better, despite using far smaller sensors than the GoPro’s 1-inch imaging chip.
Night photos exacerbate the Mission 1 Pro’s poor photo quality, as it tries its hardest to squash noise at the cost of artifacts and detail loss. You should also avoid using the camera’s digital zoom beyond 2x, as the GoPro doesn’t seem to use pixel binning; instead, it crops the sensor for more reach.
📽️ Cinema resolution. The GoPro Mission 1 Pro is a far better pocket cinema camera for video recording. Not only can it record up to 8K30 and 4K120 open gate, but it also does so at a high 240Mbps bitrate, 10-bit color, and a hybrid HLG format, so you can watch it in HDR on a compatible screen or SDR on older displays. There’s a whole litany of other resolutions (1080p & 1440p) and frame rates (24fps - 960fps) the Mission 1 Pro can record in, plus different aspect ratios, but it’s simpler to just record in open gate – which I’ll get more into soon.
Even videos shot at night look significantly better, especially if you utilize GoPro’s “Low Light Mode.” I shot two 4K30 videos with standard settings and the “Low Light Mode,” and the latter captured significantly more detail in both the leaves and wood panels on the street.
🖼️ Best Open Gate in the biz. GoPro continues to be the best at Open Gate video, allowing you to utilize the entire sensor to record a 4:3 aspect ratio. This square-shaped shooting window makes it far easier to shoot content once and then crop it into either a vertical or horizontal movie. While other camera companies like Panasonic, Fujifilm, and Canon have now caught up with open-gate video recording, their implementations require shooting at maximum resolution and needlessly waste memory space. The GoPro Mission 1 Pro lets you record open-gate footage at 8K, 4K, and 1440p without any cropping.
Features
🏄♂️ Almost gimbal-quality stabilization. GoPro cameras have always had spectacular stabilization, and the Mission 1 Pro approaches gimbal-levels of steadiness. HyperSmooth not only removes camera shake but can make your pans look smoother. The only thing it can’t fully correct is footsteps, which still appear as slight bobs and can make your video look a little floaty. If you want a fully smooth-moving video, you’ll either have to get the physical GoPro Fluid Pro AI gimbal or start ninja-walking from heel to toe with every step.
🎥 Bullet time. The GoPro Mission 1 Pro is a fantastic slow-motion camera, and it brings me so much joy to see my cat bug out, chasing a laser frame by frame. Admittedly, image quality takes a hit, and max resolution drops to 1080p if you shoot at 480fps, but it’s worth it for 16x slow motion. You can also ramp up slow motion to 32x or 960p, but this “burst slo-mo mode” only records 10 seconds of 16:9 footage at a time, which translates to five minutes of frame-by-frame action. You can also record at higher resolutions but slower frame rates, including 8K60 and 4K240, or open gate 4K120 and 1440p240.
Hardware
🎙️ Studio mics built-in. The GoPro Mission 1 Pro features an impressive set of built-in microphones, including a stereo pair on the front of the camera, another on the back facing the shooter, and a side-mounted drain microphone. That all combines into a powerful noise-canceling microphone that filters out street noise and captures only the musicians on stage during a busy Memorial Day festival. I was also impressed by how well the GoPro Mission 1 Pro captured the trumpet without any high-pitched distortion, largely thanks to the new 32-Bit Float audio recording, which helps prevent clipping.
🔋Fuller battery life. GoPro promises that the Mission 1 Pro offers the longest runtime thanks to its more efficient GP3 processor and a reformulated Enduro 2 battery. I got through a full day of shooting a mix of 480fps slow-motion movies, 4K and 8K open-gate footage, photos, and timelapse, and ended the day with over 35% battery life remaining. For straight video recording, the Mission 1 Pro offers more than five hours of 1080p30 and more than three hours of 4K30 video on a single charge.
🤿 More durable than ever. Although GoPro is pitching the Mission 1 Pro as a cinema camera, it’s even more rugged than the GoPro Hero 13 Black. Even without any underwater housing, the Mission 1 Pro is waterproof up to 66ft (20m). The body of the camera also feels as sturdy as any GoPro Hero camera, which should help it withstand accidental drops. One new protection element is an added lens hood that wraps around the front of the camera lens.
Should you buy the GoPro Mission 1 Pro?
✅ Yes, if…
You want a compact camera for 8K video
Juggling vertical and horizontal video is a constant headache
Smooth, gimbal-like video is a must
You’re constantly removing audio noise from your videos
❌ No, if…
You want a great stills camera (get the Sony ZV-E10 II instead)
Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam