I spent the UK’s sweltering Spring bank holiday outside — getting sunburnt on every inch of my exposed skin and testing the brand-new GoPro Mission 1 Pro. Given GoPro’s history I was expecting an action camera, but was greeted by that and a rugged vlog camera that can handle (almost) any adventure you could throw at it provided you respect its limitations.
The Mission 1 Pro is one of a trio of new Mission 1 action cams and, like the best GoPros that came before it, is ready for action. The Sport POV mode is set up to perfectly capture your perspective as you tackle a mountain bike trail, for example, while subject tracking is ideal for following your partner as they race through woodland or down a slope (keeping them framed in the shot so you have one less detail to focus on).
Plus with the Dive mode and a design that’s waterproof to 66ft (20m) without a housing you can easily capture color-corrected underwater footage as you snorkel. Though for me it just provided some extra reassurance I wouldn’t ruin my camera as I snapped shots while my partner and I paddled around in the water just-off Brighton beach.
My weekend was a lot more relaxed than you might expect for a GoPro excursion, but the Mission 1 Pro still felt like a solid companion.
As I just mentioned its rugged design meant I was never worried about it getting damaged, and that same subject tracking is utilized effectively by its Vlog mode — which in conjunction with its cover screen makes it easy to capture selfie-style video as my partner and I wandered through the city’s tight lanes and gardens.
For pure quality, however, you can’t beat the 8K open gate capture which delivers generally high-quality 4:3 video that can be comfortably cropped to 16:9 or 9:16 based on your needs — or be used to clip 44MP photo stills so you don’t need to take yourself out of the moment to swap between capture modes.
The quiet champion of my days out wasn’t the camera itself, it was a new add-on: the point-and-shoot grip case. The three-part attachment makes it much easier to hold the Mission 1 Pro and use it like any point-and-shoot camera, and it can be picked up separately or as part of the Grip Edition Bundle — which costs $779.99 / £679.99 / AU$1,229.95 for non-GoPro Premium subscribers
Capturing quick shots here and there I felt no pressure to be choosy as I had plenty of battery life to eat through. GoPro promises the Mission 1 Pro’s 2,150mAh Enduro 2 battery can deliver over five hours of 1080p 30fps video (or over three of 4K 30fps) and this translated to me finishing my day with charge to spare — letting me refuel the GoPro overnight so it would be ready to go again in the morning.
Some of the less standard shooting modes, though, will be a bigger hit to your battery. I took a few slow motion clips which ate about 15% of my charge. The upshot, however, are ridiculously impressive frame rates — burst Slow-Mo captures offers up to 10 seconds of 1080p at 960fps capture, working out at 5m 20s playback time at 30fps), plus slightly slower frame rates are available at higher resolution.
These slow-mo shots also clearly exposed a couple of the Mission 1 Pro’s weaknesses: focus and zoom quality.
For some burst slow-mo I captured my partner Izzy moving back and forth on a swing but I didn’t realize I’d zoomed in on the shot — it was only to 1.6x but when watching footage back on my computer it was clear the digital crop didn’t pair well with the 1080p video quality.
My other, standard slow-mo footage of Izzy blowing a dandelion was instead ruined because I got too close to her. I wanted to get a better frame of the seeds drifting away but instead the plant was entirely out of focus — as I realised after the fact that tapping on the screen tunes to auto-exposure and not an auto-focus, and that there are no manual focus controls.
These issues appeared in plenty of my other shots too, especially my photos, as it became clear the point-and-shoot grip might have changed my perspective of the Mission 1 Pro but hadn’t actually changed how the hardware functions.
With the grip attached, I was treating the GoPro Mission 1 Pro like the Canon Powershot V1 I had recently been testing for an upcoming piece, when it isn’t the same kind of beast even if it felt the same in my hands.
That’s not to say the Mission 1 Pro is therefore bad — I think it’s pretty great — and the Grip Edition adds some excellent versatility to the snapper. You just need to respect the fact the Mission 1 Pro is still an action camera at its core: this leads to a rugged design that feels perfect for surviving most adventures, but there are some hardware nuances you’ll need to navigate as you vlog your experiences.
With my lessons learned I plan to keep testing the Mission 1 Pro as I try to crack this camera — be sure to look out for my upcoming in-depth review — but if you’re keen to pick one up today it’s currently up for preorder at various retailers for $699.99 / £599.99 / AU$1,099.95.
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