Mission 1 Pro

Buying this camera to only record 1080p is like buying a Ferrari to go grocery shopping lol. Plenty of cheaper options exist that could satisfy your performance requirements. But you’ll get excellent battery life.  They’re arriving either way, so just test them out. I’d encourage you to find ways to actually play to the camera’s strengths, and try using 4K & 8K

Sure, although for this analogy to match, the 20hp motor plus all the gas it will ever need would cost less than 25% of the price of the 40hp motor lol. To each their own - I’m loving my M1P, but if I was only shooting 1080p, I’d just get a used Hero10 and a pile of batteries & accessories

Not 25% *less* - 25% of the total price, aka 75% less. I can get a used 1080p camera and several batteries for ~$150, versus a single battery & camera for ~$700. To me, paying an extra $550 to avoid a 5-second battery swap doesn’t seem like a great tradeoff if you’re choosing the same resolution either way, but again - to each their own. I’m a happy M1P owner

I used default color profiles for everything, and all default settings, except pushing to 10-bit (GoPro/DJI) and Max Bitrate on the GoPro. I think when you're doing camera comparisons with any significant amount of footage, going down the rabbit hole of constantly adjusting manual settings almost always results in failure to remember to change one camera and have things be unequal.

For the quad-picture from the side of my wife snorkeling, the haze in the water was real (just stuff floating there). DJI's processing totally removed it all, which some people might want (generally looks prettier), but obviously isn't realistic. Insta360 does what it usually does underwater, which is clean things up, but darken shadows too much. The two GoPro's seemed to split the difference here. The Hero 13 a smidge too bright, and the M1P a smidge too dark to reality. The other thing that I found is that I had to keep constantly wiping the lenses of all cameras, as whatever was floating in the water kept sticking to the front lenses of the cameras. Super thin film of sorts, but basically had to wipe it each shot. You wouldn't notice it in real-life, but only on camera gear, but was something i was dealing with the last few weeks. But ultimately, all were equal in those conditions, such is real life.

I'd probably go with the Mission 1 Pro again, but I also like taking the Oceanic case with the iPhone 17 Pro. The setup is a bit finicky, but you can get some amazing shots on your iPhone. As for a scuba-focused one, I don't have an exact date yet. I need to knock out some other things over the coming days, and realistically doing dives kinda zaps about a 4-5hr chunk of my day (since I'll go with a group for safety/etc reasons, rather than just putting on my gear and jumping in the water 2 mins away). There's a wreck dive site here that's pretty water-condition dependent, might be a possibility soon though, so if I can get there, I'd do that first.

I definitely agree with the focal distance. For my talking head shots, I got way better quality and cropping at like 14-18 inches over the stated 24. I also agree about the medium sharpening. I love my mission 1!

No offense to dcrainmaker, but his footage in general wasn't as impressive as some of the other sample footage I have seen. That said, Mission 1 Pro is likely showing the most true-to-reality images here, and that is primarily what I care about in a camera. They are shown in pretty much the order I would rank them.

I don't typically adjust my settings on the fly, but I take the time to find the ideal setup to make my default. It might be worth looking those up and experimenting for each camera so that you can compare them all in their strongest settings. For example, in most scenarios 8K footage isn't going to look as nice as 4K footage. I'd argue the GoPro default should lean towards 4K for that reason. Same goes for frame rates: 30 fps will typically result in better image quality than 60 / 120 / 240 fps, which is particularly noticeable when shooting in low-light. (Your low-light test was shot at 50/60 fps instead of 24/30). So I'd argue 30 fps should be default unless you are shooting for slo-mo. 4K - resolution 30 - Frame rate Then color profile (natural?), sharpness (low / medium?), ISO cap, etc. The end goal is to try and achieve the most universally good looking footage. It sucks to have to bust out a spread sheet and do this for every action camera, and it sucks that the default settings of each camera can vary wildly, but for those of us that only own a single camera or two, the default settings are not very applicable because we quickly tweak them to more ideal settings. And for sake of comparison, ideal settings should be whatever results in the most accurate to real-life images as possible. (IE: no beauty filters).

If GoPro knew what they were doing then they would: 1. Keep the Hero line and make it physically smaller in size and lighter in weight. (think Hero 7, Mini, or even Session sizes). The Hero 13 was already getting chunky for an action cam. They would also keep the small(ish) sensor size and expand on low-light with better processing power because the larger sensor sizes come with their own set of issues for an action camera. 2. Expand on the Mission line only as the Prosumer option where a chunky camera isn't such a big deal and peak image quality is a worthwhile tradeoff. I'd like some official clarity on whether or not the Hero line is being replaced with the Mission line. I fear GoPro is blowing it and taking even more of the "Action" out of the action-camera.

I'd argue a better save-the-company bet would have been to shore-up their primary action camera line (hero) with the new GP3 processor and have that out to market much quicker. GP3 should have been pushed into a Hero 14, and then Max 3 (arguably Max 2) well before it was pushed into a completely new camera. I feel like GoPro let influencers dictate their push for a prosumer camera (Mission line) and seemingly forgot about their primary user-base (action camera users who aren't publishing content for views and clicks). They also may have just shot themselves in the foot by not opening up pre-orders immediately, forcing them to borrow more money from lenders (at terrible rates and stock dilution) all while potentially cannibalizing the sales of their existing hero 13 for a month if there is in fact a large over-lap of customers between the lineup. As an avid action camera user who isn't an influencer, I just wanted a return to a small, light-weight action camera (hero 7 size or less) with a better processor.

GoPro has a history of botching or discontinuing their "mini" cameras: Session, Mini, Bones, Hero 4K, etc. There are reasons to miss some of those, and reasons to dunk on others (non-user replaceable battery for example). GoPro has also bloated their own Hero line starting with the Hero 9 (which was noticeably larger and heavier than the Hero 8). If GoPro were serious about being an action-camera company, then they need to (at a minimum) continue to develop the same Hero sized / weighted cameras. But what they should really be doing is reducing the Hero size / weight to be a better "action" camera. Small and light-weight should be the #1 priority for the Hero line (particularly now that there is a Mission line). Image quality should be #2 and everything else (battery-life, app, editor, interface) a distant #3. GoPro lost their way when they tried to turn their action camera into a vlogging camera (Hero 9 onward). Hero 8 was a miss because they stupidly removed the replaceable lens cover. That makes the Hero 7 the last true action camera in my book. I would gladly purchase a Hero 7 equivalent with a new processor for $400. I don't give two fucks about 8K or a front-facing screen. Regarding the "larger sensor": I remember when everyone was asking for optical image stabilization. GoPro said fuck-that, here is digital image stabilization, and they were right to do so. Now when people were asking for a larger sensor, GoPro (for their Hero line) should say fuck-that, here is better processing power for an improved low-light performance (and I don't care if it isn't as good as a 1" sensor). Final note for GoPro: **Start making your Hero line an "action" camera again** now that you no longer need to pander to the influencers... They got their larger, heavier, more expensive, 1" sensor variant, now **give us action-cam fans a better Hero 7**.

My brother just bought a 40hp outboard motor. An upgrade from his 20 hp motor he goes way faster now at half throttle and so he's using less fuel than the 20 hp was because the 20 horsepower had to work so hard. Same concept.

25% less an double the power to burn less fuel... Why do I want to buy, charge, and constantly change batteries when I can have the camera run for 5hrs straight on one battery? Mp1 deff worth avoiding that hassel

It absolutely is worth it. Battery changes constantly stop me from wanting to film

Isn't your time worth something? You can spend your time being a battery changer to save a little money or you can spend the money and focus on filming instead of always waiting for another battery to die so you can stop your work, find a battery, retc etc. I'm $120/hr. This camera is cheap for what it does.