I’ve been putting the brand new GoPro Mission 1 Pro through its paces over the last couple of weeks — outdoors running and riding, underwater, you name it. All to figure out how its new features work, because there are a ton of them. About 50 new features, which is actually quite astonishing. More than that, I wanted to see how this camera compares to the other cameras I’ve got here, like the Insta360 Ace Pro 2, the DJI Action 6, and the existing GoPro Hero 13 Black.

But this is not a review video, for one core reason. GoPro has placed two restrictions on media loaners of this camera. First, I can’t share any of the original footage from this camera. They didn’t say I couldn’t share the back of the camera, but that aside. Second, anything titled “review” has to come out closer to that May 21st date. That’s really too bad, because I have so much footage — an astonishing amount of footage — and more than that, it’s really effing good footage. Like, really, really, really good. But I want to be upfront with you about that restriction. Beyond those limitations, there’s really nothing else that I can’t show you, so I’m going to show you basically everything on this camera. And no, this video is definitely not sponsored by GoPro or anyone else for that matter.

Three Cameras: Mission 1, Mission 1 Pro, and Mission 1 Pro ILS

The first thing to know is the price. There are technically three different cameras here — a non-Pro, a Pro, and a Pro ILS. The only difference between the Pro and the Pro ILS is that the Pro ILS has a micro four thirds mount on the front for lenses. We’ll talk about that in a second. The main difference between the base unit and the Pro is simply some of the frame rates, which we’ll get into later. Otherwise, feature-wise, they are identical except for those additional frame rates.

New 1-Inch Quad Bayer Sensor and GP3 Processor

Let’s get into some of the technical goodness. GoPro has upgraded to a 1-inch quad Bayer sensor. This essentially gives them more flexibility for low light coverage, as well as a much bigger sensor size than their competitors. Keep in mind, sensor size is only one piece of the entire imaging pipeline — like one out of 20 different pieces. It does not make for a great camera by itself.

The second most important piece of the puzzle is the SoC — basically, the brains of the camera. In this case, GoPro is introducing the new GP3 SoC. This is what gives them the higher frame rates, the higher bit rates, and all that kind of goodness behind the scenes.

Interchangeable Lens System (ILS) With Micro Four Thirds Mount

As I mentioned, there’s another version of this camera called the ILS, standing for Interchangeable Lens System. This is the one that’s probably gotten the most media attention, and it allows you to put a micro four thirds lens onto the front of the camera. That means you can use 300+ different compatible lenses. Keep in mind though, there’s no electronic connection there, so it won’t do things like autofocus. This is just a lens on the front of it.

The ILS will give you incredible depth of field with certain lenses, really interesting night shots, close-up shots, and all the things you’d imagine with an SLR-style lens system. It also has stabilization from the camera itself, and that stabilization will apply to those lenses — but again, you have to manually focus. The cool part here is the price is the same as the Pro, and it’s incredibly reasonable. I thought it’d be way higher — like $1,000, give or take. Availability is later though, rather than that May time frame. It is Q3, so officially July through September — sounds like closer to that September time frame than the July time frame, so make of that what you will.

8K60, 4K240, and 1080p960 Frame Rates

Let’s run through some specs. GoPro has added 8K60 on the Pro model in particular. This is available both linear and wide. If you want SuperView — that’s the much wider view — you drop down to 8K30. They’ve also added 4K at 240 frames per second, totally unrestricted on the time frame. In the past, all the other action cameras are limited to 4K 120 for unrestricted use. Now you’re at 4K 240.

They’ve also added 1080p at 480 frames per second, again unrestricted. In the past, for everyone else, that was limited to 240. And finally, in burst mode — so up to 10 seconds’ worth — you can do 1080p at 960 frames per second for the most epic cannonballs ever.

Dedicated Low Light Mode Finally Arrives

GoPro has added a new dedicated low light mode, which is really impressive. It’s supported for 4K 60 footage — so you can’t use it in 8K — and it’s in the same general class as the low light modes you’d see on the Insta360 Ace Pro 2 and the DJI Action 6. This is really where that comparison footage would be handy to show you the differences, but since I can’t share the footage, just check out the back of the cameras. In particular, note the GoPro Hero 13 Black at the bottom — it makes it look like it’s completely dark out. GoPro has long struggled with low light footage, and this finally seems to resolve that.

Open Gate, 240 Mbps Bit Rate, and GP-Log 2

GoPro has added an open gate mode setting. Now, the thing to understand about open gate mode is it simply means you’re shooting the entire sensor — that’s all the term means, nothing more. GoPro has had an open gate mode for like three generations of cameras now, long before DJI added open gate mode in their last version. But what GoPro essentially heard was that people didn’t think they had that mode. So they wanted to make it clear they have it by creating a custom mode called “Open Gate.” Otherwise, you could have always just made your own open gate mode and done the exact same thing.

GoPro has also increased the bit rate to 240 Mbps, which is pretty astonishing. You still have the existing options for standard and high if you don’t want that level of bit rate, and I’ll talk about even higher bit rate options later. They’ve also added a new GP-Log 2 version, which is different than the GP-Log 1 on the Hero 13 Black. It has a different log curve, so they are not technically interchangeable. You still have the separate flat color option if you want that versus the dedicated log option. And of course, GoPro still has the 10-bit recording option they’ve had for many years.

Subject Tracking and a Larger Rear Display

Moving away from resolutions and frame rates, they’ve added a subject tracking mode. Basically, you can enable this and it tracks you as a subject, similar to what DJI and others have done for a couple of years now. This is mainly when you want to put the camera in a static position and track that way. I’ll do a separate video on that down the road.

As you’re looking at the back of the screen, you may notice it’s bigger. It’s now a 2.59-inch display, up from 2.27 inches — basically 14% larger. Also larger is the camera itself. There’s no getting around that — it’s a bit larger than the Hero 13 Black. It’s also a little heavier than the Hero 13 Black, as well as all their competitors. That seems to be the general trend of all these companies right now — you have two lines of cameras, one big and more powerful, and one tiny. Right now GoPro’s tiny camera, the Hero 4K Lids or whatever version you want, isn’t all that great from an image quality standpoint. I’d assume sometime this fall we’ll see a new tiny camera from GoPro to fill out that lineup.

Redesigned Buttons, Equilibrium Design, and 20m Water Resistance

On the hardware, you’ll notice the buttons are all changed. The top button is much higher than in the past, and the same goes for the side mode button. This allows you to simply find it and use it more easily, especially with gloves. Also of note — if you look very carefully, you can see through the button. That’s called an equilibrium button, and it allows water to flow underneath the button itself. In higher water pressure scenarios down deeper, when you press it, it doesn’t get stuck.

Why might you care about that? Because they’ve increased the water resistance down to 20 meters, up from the previous 10 meters. There is no depth gauge in this camera though, like there is on DJI’s camera, which is a bit of a bummer. There’s also a lens hood on the front that comes off if you want. There are little tiny things on the front that keep it in place. So far I haven’t lost it — I expect to at some point — but it has stayed put over the last couple of weeks.

Toggleable Capture Modes and New Sport POV Mode

They’ve added new modes. In the past, these were essentially shooting modes but you couldn’t disable them — you had to delete them if you didn’t want them. Now you can enable and disable modes and save them for later. A good example: I did a race this past weekend and I wanted just two modes on there — a wide SuperView mode and a linear mode. I didn’t want to accidentally enable photo mode or time-lapse mode. Now you can disable those temporarily and reenable them later on, like when I wanted to shoot some star night coverage. What’s also cool is you can apply a custom setting change to all modes at once, or only to one mode.

They’ve also added a new Sport POV mode, kind of in the same vein as what they did on the GoPro Max 2. It’s looking at the accelerometer and gyro data from inside the camera, and when you have a vehicle or something that goes around a sharp turn, it better accounts for that sharp turn — so it doesn’t do any funky stabilization like cropping in too much or shifting incorrectly. It’s designed to counter high-speed turning scenarios from a point of view.

New Diving Mode and Motion Blur Option

They’ve added a new diving mode. I’ve been using this out over the last couple of days. This mode is really designed for deeper depths than the shallow snorkeling and free diving I was doing. Essentially, it tweaks those colors automatically so you don’t have to have a filter on the front of the camera. They’ve also added a motion blur option, similar to what we saw with the GoPro Max 2.

New Enduro 2 Battery, Backward Compatible With Hero 13 Black

There are a lot of interesting changes on the battery. This is the new GoPro Enduro 2 battery. The cool part: this battery is interchangeable with the Hero 13 Black batteries. GoPro said that when they were designing the Hero 13 battery and changing it from the previous Hero 11/12 batteries, they knew they were going to take some heat for that, but they also knew they were going to be able to hold it long-term into this camera series.

This new battery is bigger than before — 2150 mAh versus 1900 mAh. It’s also bigger than all their competitors. You can use a Hero 13 battery in the Mission Pro, but you won’t get quite the same battery duration because it’s a smaller battery. If you put the old battery in, it’ll just say “Enduro 1 battery, older battery detected” right on the front, but it works just fine. Likewise with charging — you can use any old charger or new charger.

But the new battery is astronomically faster at charging. You get from 0 to 80% in 20 minutes. The remaining 20% depends on the temperature of the battery — roughly another 20 minutes to get to the very top because it slow-charges and trickle-charges like most companies do for the last 20%. If it’s hotter, it might be slower; if it’s cooler, it might be faster. GoPro notes that the reason their batteries take a bit longer to charge than their competitors’ is simply that they’re bigger batteries — it’s a factual reality of battery size. But getting to 80% in 20 minutes has been a game-changer for me compared to the two-to-three business days of the past.

Real-World Battery Life Testing

Also a game-changer is just how long the batteries last in the real world. Here is GoPro’s official battery chart showing all these battery lengths. I have not yet tested all of these, especially since it’s not final firmware, but I have tested a couple to see how well they handled. For example, the claim for 8K30 was 96 minutes. I went out and put it outside at sunset, roughly 70°F temperatures, and got 1 hour and 25 minutes. That’s longer than the claim spec — but I was in 16×9 mode, and the official spec is 4×3, which I noticed later. Still, that’s pretty darn solid for 8K30.

I also put it out overnight last night and got 4 hours 57 minutes in the 1080p mode, just letting it run with all defaults. Their official claim for that mode is 315 minutes, but in that mode they tell you to shut off GPS — and I didn’t. So there are slight differences there, but the same ballpark. Astonishingly good.

Four Microphones and Expanded Audio Options

Let’s talk audio. They’ve added a new microphone hole down in the corner on the back, so you get better audio when you’re talking to the back of the camera. They’ve also rearranged the rest of the mics. There are now two mics on the front. On the “not so” door that people always try to open — this is not a door, this is a microphone drain. Do not open it, it will break your camera. Your door is over on the side. Those two front mics are designed for better stereo sound, so there are four total mics now.

When it comes to microphones, there are a lot more options. You can connect to Bluetooth audio devices like in the past, and you can also use those Bluetooth devices like headphones to play back the recorded audio from the camera. Likewise, you can choose to set the beeps to play back on a pair of headphones, which is pretty cool. You can record all the raw audio as well, including in 32-bit float, and there’s a dedicated audio control panel that you didn’t used to have.

You can also use any generic USB-C mic. In the past, you had to use GoPro’s dedicated USB-C mic adapter, which was just a giant Twinkie of a thing. Now you can use whatever you want, which is nice. Of course, you can also use GoPro’s newly announced wireless mic system — I’m going to do a separate video on that once I have it in hand. It’s very similar to the DJI mic system I’m using to record this entire video, but GoPro branded.

New Cinematic Color, Image Tuning, and Range-Based ISO/Shutter

Back to video stuff. One of my favorite new features is being able to see all your pro options along the top in real time, showing and changing live. They’ve added a new cinematic recording option for color — this is simply changing the color matrix itself, baking it into the file like a filter. There’s a new image tuning option with modes like bounce, sport, face, and underwater, which configures a bunch of settings behind it.

They’ve added a new shutter speed range option. They’ve always had both fixed and auto options in the past, but now you can specify a range. You can’t tweak every single number in that range, but you can give it rough ranges. The same is true of a new ISO range option that does the exact same thing but for ISO. They’ve also added 2x, 3x, and 4x digital zoom options, which basically just crop in from that 8K sensor. This does the cropping for you up front versus having to do it in post. There are plenty of scenarios where you may not want to deal with cropping in post and having bigger 8K files — imagine a baseball or football stadium where you’re in the nosebleed section and you know you need the crop.

Ambient Light Sensor and Anti-Flicker Option

They’ve also added a new anti-flicker option, which is really cool. That little white dot on the camera is an ambient light sensor. It will actually detect the frequency of the lights automatically and warn you on the screen that, hey, the frequency doesn’t match. That’s super useful if you’re traveling and you’re primarily shooting something like 4K30, 8K30, or 8K60 — so the 30 variants — and then you’re in Europe with lights operating on a different frequency. It’ll automatically adjust that for you when you tap that option.

50MP Photos and GoPro Labs Expansion

On the photo side — yes, people still shoot photos with a GoPro. They’ve added a 50-megapixel photo mode, both in RAW and JPEG. Keep in mind you can get 44-megapixel stills from 8K footage, and in most cases it’s far easier to run 8K60 and simply find the frame you want than to try to hit the trigger at the exact moment you want in that scene of action. But if you’re shooting a still scene, then go forth and use that photo mode.

One more tidbit before we get to the removals: GoPro Labs is still supported on this camera, and not only supported but expanded. There’s a new 300 Mbps mode, for example. You have chapter files up to 100 GB per file size, which is bonkers. You’ve also got all the existing GoPro Labs features, as well as the on-screen histogram and more.

What Got Removed: 2.7K, 5.3K, and 8×7 Aspect Ratio

Let’s talk about some things that are removed. First, they’ve removed 2.7K and 5.3K resolutions entirely. They do not exist anymore. Apparently, due to the new sensor of this camera, those aren’t supported. The 5.3K one is a bit of a bummer to me because I liked having that shooting option when I wanted to take stills from it later for Strava and running. I can certainly take stills from 8K, but I’ve just got bigger files to deal with. Also removed is the 8×7 aspect ratio option. In place of it, you get 4×3 — again, basically based on the sensor size, that’s what they’ve got to work with.

The next thing to know is that none of the Hero 13 Black lenses — any of the new HB series lenses like the macro lens, the anamorphic lens, or anything like that — fits on this camera. It physically doesn’t fit because that new 1-inch sensor is so much bigger. That’s definitely a bummer if you had those past lenses. That said, the bottom is identical, so any GoPro mounts you’ve had in the past all work. The door is identical too, so if you had the charging port door on the side, that’s still compatible. The front lens screen is the exact same size as the past, and GPS remains as before.

What I Wish GoPro Had Added

One thing I wish was there — that is on DJI’s Action 6 — is the ability to upload files to a local NAS or Google Drive. I just simply tap that button and it automatically syncs to my local NAS device, which is really handy when you have a lot of footage. GoPro obviously can sync to the GoPro cloud, and I’ve used that for many years — I’ve got almost 8 terabytes of stuff up there, and I love it for backup purposes. But when it comes to having all the footage handy for doing workflow stuff, having it on a local NAS is just so much better.

I hope GoPro looks at adding something like that, especially as they’re targeting Pro Series workflows where companies may have not just single or 10-digit cameras, but hundreds of cameras on a production pushing into a single location. Mr. Beast, I’m looking at you. The other thing not on the new GoPro is any sort of internal storage, like you see on the DJI camera. This is just handy when you forget your SD card, or whatever the case may be, just to have backup storage there.

New Accessories: Media Mod, ND Filters, Wireless Mic, and Grip

Let’s talk about all the new accessories. The very first one is the new GoPro Media Mod. The old Media Mod is not compatible because the camera is physically bigger. This has a whole slate of changes, especially around the microphones and some of the adapter ports, but I’m going to do a separate video on that once I have it in hand. There are also new ND filters, because the existing ND filters aren’t compatible. There’s a new vertical mount adapter that their competitors have had for many years. There’s the new wireless mic kit I mentioned earlier — again, a separate video on that.

This is still compatible with the GoPro gimbal they released last year. That gimbal has roughly a 400g payload, so GoPro is saying you can put the ILS version of the Mission Pro on there with roughly a 200g lens and it all works. They’ve been doing that and it works. There’s also a new grip — that’s just a grip that goes around it. There are no electronics in the grip itself. It’s purely mechanical, though it does have a mechanical shutter thing on the top. There are also a bunch of new GoPro Quik app features, including support for the 8K footage itself. I’ll cover that in a full review down the road.

Mission 1 vs. Mission 1 Pro: It Comes Down to Frame Rates

So what are the core differences between the Mission 1 and the Mission 1 Pro? Frame rates. It is essentially just frame rates, and then which modes are supported in Open Gate for the Mission 1 Pro versus the base. Everything else GoPro says is identical across the board. I don’t have the Mission One base camera in my hands yet, just a couple of the Pros. So stay tuned for that to make sure it matches reality.

Obviously, I have plenty more to dive into with these cameras — comparisons to competitors, footage sharing, all that goodness. As soon as GoPro lets media share that footage, hopefully sooner rather than later, I will do that, including uploading the raw footage itself so you can play with it. As I always do, I’ll have a pinned comment the moment they allow that, so you can just find the video quickly.

This article is based on a video by Ray Maker, aka DC Rainmaker, one of our YouTube partners. Be sure to subscribe to his channel for in-depth, independent reviews of the latest action cameras, wearables, and sports tech, and check out Ray’s DroneXL author page for more of his coverage here on DroneXL.