On A Mission: The New GoPro Camera in Action

For the longest time, I've struggled to find a way to bridge two of our major collections: lens mount adapters and our GoTough line for GoPro cameras. This month, through line showed its face in the form of the GoPro MISSION 1 PRO ILS.

Equipped with a Micro Four-Thirds mount, this camera marks new territory for GoPro, as a brand, as well as anyone familiar with their products. Nowadays, a standard model has a variety of fields of view, ranging from Narrow to SuperView. But with an interchangeable mount, the field of view is completely dependent on the lens being mounted.

Unfortunately, the camera mount is not active, so it wouldn't support any electronic features. Fully-manual Micro Four-Thirds lenses would work fine, but Fotodiox offers so many more options, in the form of our wide variety of adapters. Basically everything in our Micro Four-Thirds lineup would be compatible.

Fotodiox (and other Micro Four-Thirds users) are well acquainted with the 2x crop factor of the system, but the Mission 1 Pro ILS doesn't use a full-sized Micro Four-Thirds sensor, intead opting for a 1” sensor. It's a tighter crop (at 2.7x), so we have to adjust accordingly.

To get the normal field of view of a 50mm lens, the best lens for this camera would be around the 18mm mark. A 20mm is a tad long (but workable), but there are plenty of third-party 17mm or 18mm lenses.

If you're coming from an APS-C system, your standard kit lens may be just the thing. At our office, we have a Canon 18-55mm kit, which would work fine, except for the lack of contacts. A Sony 18-70mm ended up being my choice; the longer reach while still having an f/5.6 at the long end isn't too bad. With the crop, the 18-70mm has a full-frame equivalent of 48.6-189mm, making it mostly a telephoto zoom with a normal focal length on the wide end.

It's a fun little setup. Definitely front-heavy. I'm holding the lens more than I'm holding the camera. While the GoPro's auto features are fun and make everything streamlined, you do have the option to manually select shutter speed and IOS, so you'll have full control if you have a lens with a manual aperture. At the wide end, the f/3.5 aperture is forgiving, but the f/5.6 can be tough to work with in a darker environment.

A good side-grade (or upgrade, really) would be the 17-55mm f/2.8 (full-frame equivalent of 45.9-148.5mm), and while it's a Nikon G-type lens (with no dedicated aperture ring), our adapters have a ring so we're not completely out of luck. The fixed aperture makes it so exposure can stay the same between the wide and long end of the range.

This lens already has a pretty long reach, but what would happen if we put on a proper telephoto lens? A tried-and-true lens, the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 was the perfect lens to try, and it's a whole lot of lens for the tiny GoPro. With that 2.7x crop factor, this is 189-540mm full-frame equivalent. One thing I do like about this setup that the lens has a tripod collar, so you can easily switch from standard, horizontal shooting to something more social media oriented that may include vertical video (TikTok, Reels, Shorts, etc).

Overall, this camera is a powerhouse for creativity. Just the stills is robust enough with plenty of options, and the video settings have even more to play with! The lenses you adapt to it really dictate how light your setup will be, but using an interchangeable mount introduces a previously-unexplored ecosystem to GoPro creators.