GoPro's foray into interchangeable-lens cameras comes with a catch nobody seems to have flagged loudly until now. The Mission 1 Pro ILS, which DPReview reviewer Mitchell Clark is currently testing, won't work with most lenses built for its own Micro Four Thirds mount.
Clark laid this out while running through the gear he packs for work trips, in a piece published Sunday about the cameras and accessories he brings along to shoot video and review products. The Mission 1 Pro ILS is one of three cameras in his current kit, alongside a Canon EOS R6 V and a Panasonic S1II, and he says he's paired it with a Laowa 6mm T2.1 and a Meike 12mm F2.8, rather than reaching for the much larger catalog of Micro Four Thirds glass from Panasonic, Olympus or OM System.
The reason, according to Clark: "the GoPro doesn't work with any of them that require electrical contacts for aperture and focus control which, it turns out, is most of them." Micro Four Thirds lenses typically talk to the camera body through those contacts, handling autofocus, aperture control and image stabilization data. Strip that communication out and you're left with fully manual lenses, a much smaller pool that includes brands like Laowa and Meike, both known for budget-friendly manual optics rather than autofocus convenience.
That's a meaningful constraint for anyone buying into the system expecting to tap into the Micro Four Thirds lens ecosystem that's built up over roughly 15 years, with contributions from Panasonic, Olympus, OM System and third parties like Sigma. If the Mission 1 Pro ILS genuinely can't talk to lenses with electronic contacts, it effectively isn't compatible with the vast majority of autofocus glass made for the mount, even though it physically takes the same lenses.
DPReview hasn't published a dedicated review of the Mission 1 Pro ILS yet, and Clark's piece was framed around travel gear rather than a formal verdict, so the full scope of the camera's compatibility limits isn't spelled out here. It's also not clear whether this is a hardware limitation, a firmware restriction that could be patched later, or something specific to the particular lenses Clark tried.
GoPro has built its reputation on action cameras rather than interchangeable-lens systems, and the Mission 1 Pro ILS marks a shift into territory long dominated by Panasonic and OM System. Whether that shift pays off may hinge on whether GoPro opens up compatibility with more of the existing Micro Four Thirds lens catalog, or whether buyers are expected to stick with manual glass, a niche corner of an already niche mount.
A full DPReview test of the camera, which would presumably dig into autofocus, video specs and stabilization, hasn't surfaced yet. Until it does, anyone eyeing the Mission 1 Pro ILS for its lens mount alone should check which specific lenses actually work before buying in.
GDFiled by The Gadgets Desk
Audio, wearables, cameras, tablets, chargers and every other device worth carrying or plugging in.
More from this desk →
Be the first to comment
Join the argument. No password, just your email or a passkey.