I’ve shot with both the GoPro Mission 1 Pro and the mirrorless ILS, but as a photographer, there was one thing that bothered me about the experience of shooting stills with cameras: the shutter delay. Now, GoPro is making the still photos on its new compact cinema camera line feel like shooting stills on a traditional camera does, thanks to new firmware.
A GoPro Labs update is also bringing anamorphic lens support to the ILS.
The Mission 1 cameras, like the Hero series cameras, had a one-second countdown from one second every time you took a photo, which made timing the shot a bit trickier. With the newest Mission 1 firmware, the cameras now take still photos without that delay.
The Mission 1 cameras can take burst photos, but the burst mode previously shot a preset number of photos. The new firmware will also make the Mission 1 series burst mode operate more like a traditional stills camera. Pressing and holding the shutter in photo mode will activate a burst that continues for as long as the shutter is pressed, or until the camera’s buffer fills up.
The camera's display will also now show a countdown that shows how many shots can still be taken before that buffer is filled up.
Finally, GoPro has added a shutter sound to signal that the photo has been taken, describing it as “a clear, distinguishable audio confirmation.”
Those changes will help shooting still photos with the Mission 1 cameras feel a bit more like working with a traditional stills camera.
GoPro calls the Mission 1 series “compact cinema cameras” – the lineup is video first, photos second. But the update fixes my biggest complaints about shooting photos with the cinema cameras.
The Mission 1 Pro’s biggest features are all video-focused – I think the stills photographers who are picking up something like the Mission 1 Pro are likely grabbing the small camera to record behind-the-scenes footage for social media, not for stills.
But, photographers have long been asking for a waterproof compact camera with a one-inch sensor, and the firmware update will make the Mission 1 Pro feel a bit more like one. I took one to a beach day to use as a point-and-shoot, and the biggest thing that kept it from feeling like a waterproof compact camera was that shutter delay.
The Mission 1 Pro doesn’t have the zoom or adjustable focus of a dedicated compact camera like the OM System Tough TG-7. But I think the firmware update is going to make the camera a lot more enticing as a dual-purpose camera.
That same update also improves the photo experience on the Mission 1 Pro ILS, GoPro’s first mirrorless camera. For still photos, the manual focus adjustments and one-inch sensor aren’t going to entice photographers over some other budget options like the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV. But it’s a nice update for filmmakers looking to snap stills along with videos from an affordable 8K shooter.
Filmmakers may be more drawn to an update that’s coming via the public beta platform GoPro Labs: anamorphic lens support. Anamorphic lens support has now been added as a beta feature, which writes pixel aspect ratio metadata to the file so that video software can correct the anamorphic automatically. The beta feature supports squeeze ratios of 1.33x, 1.5x, 1.6x, 1.8x and 2.0x.
The updated firmware is available directly from GoPro as well as through the GoPro Quik app. This is an update that I’m eager to try out – though it’s not a bad idea to wait a few days in case of firmware bugs.
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Take a look at the best GoPro cameras, or read the Mission 1 Pro and Mission 1 Pro ILS reviews.
