If you just got your hands on the new GoPro Mission 1 Pro and want to get the absolute best results out of it, this guide is for you. Whether you are a complete beginner or a seasoned GoPro user, there are some important tweaks and settings in this camera that make a massive difference in your footage quality.
And since the menu and settings on the Mission 1 Pro are slightly different from every previous GoPro, even experienced users will find something new here. FPV pilots, stick around because the best FPV settings are covered here as well.
Table of Contents
Starting From Scratch: Initial Setup
To walk through this properly, the camera has been reset to factory settings. When you first power it on, you will go through a few basic questions. Select your language, agree to the legal terms, and decide on GPS and voice control. Voice control is not used very often, so leaving it off is a reasonable choice for most users.
At this point, the camera will give you the option to scan a QR code and set things up through the GoPro Quick app. For this guide, everything is being done manually. Skip the app setup, set your time zone and date, and you are ready to start customizing.
Navigating the Main Menu
When you first open the camera, it defaults to the video tab. Before diving into video settings, swipe down to access the main menu. Here is a quick overview of what you will find there.
The top left shows voice control and beeps. The beeps can be a little annoying, so turning them off is a good call. The LED setting controls the red blinking light that appears when you are recording, and you will want to leave that on.
You can also lock the screen, turn off the front display, set the orientation, and change lenses if applicable. For ND filter detection, the autodetect option works great because the GoPro lenses have a built-in feature that automatically recognizes when an ND filter is attached.
Turning On Capture Info Display
Head over to Preferences and then go to Displays. From here, you can turn on Capture Info. Once this is enabled, you will see shutter values, ISO values, EV values, and white balance displayed right on the main homepage.
In the past, you needed GoPro Labs to get this information on screen, so having it built in now is a genuinely helpful improvement, especially when you are dialing in your shutter speed and other settings.
Everything else in Preferences can be left at default. You can adjust the date, region, and other general settings from here as well. There is also an audio settings section where you can configure main and sub tracks if you have mics attached.
GoPro recently released a set of mics that connect directly to the camera, which makes setting up a talking head shot or miking yourself during an activity incredibly simple.
Understanding the Shooting Modes
When you are in video mode, swiping left and right will reveal a range of shooting modes available on the Mission 1 Pro. These include time lapse, photo, video, POV, slow motion, and low light. You can also customize which modes appear on this main swipe screen through the Manage Modes option.
Some additional modes worth knowing about include night effects, subject tracking, vlog, dive mode, looping, open gate mode, and endurance mode. Dive mode is particularly important if you shoot underwater because it trains the stabilization to handle the refraction that happens beneath the surface.
In previous GoPros, this required GoPro Labs. Endurance mode is designed to let the camera run for as long as possible, with some users testing it up to five hours of continuous recording, which is well beyond what any other action camera on the market offers.
GoPro Mission 1 Pro Best Video Settings
Aspect Ratio
The first setting you will see in video mode is aspect ratio. You have three options. The 16×9 setting gives you a wide standard look. The 9×6 setting is a cropped vertical format.
The 4×3 setting uses the entire sensor, which is the open gate mode. If you want to shoot one clip and have the flexibility to crop it either vertically or horizontally in post, shooting in 4×3 is the way to go.
Resolution
The Mission 1 Pro can shoot in 8K, which gives you a lot of room to crop into your footage while still maintaining great resolution. However, shooting in 4K is actually recommended for most situations and here is why. The Mission 1 Pro uses a technology called pixel binning.
When downscaling from the full 8K sensor to 4K, the camera groups sets of four pixels together and shoots them at slightly different exposure values. This essentially gives you HDR and results in better dynamic range at 4K than at 8K. The 4K footage still looks incredible, so you are not missing out on anything meaningful.
Frame Rate
For general casual footage without any slow motion, 30 frames per second is the go-to choice. While 24fps is an option, 30fps tends to display better on Instagram and YouTube. If you want slow motion, the Mission 1 Pro gives you some impressive options.
You can shoot 4K at 120fps in the 4×3 aspect ratio, or switch to 16×9 for 240fps. There is also a 480fps option that drops to 1080p resolution. For the most extreme slow motion, you can shoot 960fps in burst slow motion mode, which will be covered in more detail shortly.
Image Settings
Bit Depth and Bit Rate
For the best possible image quality, turn bit depth up to 10 bit. If smaller file sizes matter more to you than absolute quality, 8 bit is fine. For bit rate, set it to max. The Mission 1 Pro shoots at 240 megabits per second, which is a major improvement over any previous GoPro. The files will be larger, but the image quality improvement is well worth it.
Color Modes
The Mission 1 Pro offers several color modes. Vibrant delivers a more saturated look. Natural is slightly less saturated. Flat is more desaturated and gives you greater creative control when color grading in post.
GP Log 2 is the new log format, and it is a massive improvement over any previous GoPro log profile. If you are someone who enjoys in-depth color grading, GP Log 2 is worth exploring seriously.
The mode that stands out the most, however, is the new Cinematic mode. Cinematic mode adjusts the tone mapping of the image to produce a more natural and organic look rather than the processed appearance typical of action cameras. When you dial in all your other settings alongside Cinematic mode, the footage genuinely looks like it was captured on a cinema camera.
If you plan to color grade your clips afterward, Cinematic mode is highly recommended. If you just want to shoot, send clips to your phone, and post without any editing, Natural is the better choice.
A set of four LUTs is available for purchase that can be applied directly on top of your footage in post to achieve that cinematic look without heavy color grading work.
Shutter Speed
This is one of the most important settings to get right. The rule is simple: your shutter speed should be double your frame rate. If you are shooting at 30fps, set your shutter to 1/60. If you are shooting at 60fps, set it to 1/120. This produces the natural motion blur that makes video look more cinematic and film-like.
In the shutter settings, you can choose auto, fixed, or a range. Shooting at fixed is generally the best approach. Keep in mind that locking your shutter at 1/60 in a bright outdoor environment will likely result in overexposed footage. The solution is ND filters.
GoPro sells a set, and other third-party options are available as well. With capture info now displayed on the home screen, you can quickly check your shutter speed while swapping ND filters to find the right one for your shooting conditions.
Motion Blur
If you lock your shutter speed, motion blur will be unavailable in settings because your shutter settings naturally handle it. If you shoot on auto, you can choose from cinematic high, cinematic medium, cinematic low, or adaptive.
If your settings are not perfect and you do not have an ND filter on, cinematic low is a good choice since motion blur can also be added in post. If you do not want to think about this, cinematic medium or high will give you a pleasing look without any extra work.
EV Compensation
On previous GoPros, setting EV comp to negative 0.5 was a standard recommendation. On the Mission 1 Pro, this has not been necessary in testing, suggesting GoPro has addressed that issue. If you notice your image looks slightly overexposed, bring EV comp down to negative 0.5. Otherwise, leaving it at default is fine.
White Balance
Auto white balance works very well on the Mission 1 Pro and is the recommended setting for most situations. If you are moving between environments with different lighting temperatures, the camera can occasionally struggle to adjust.
In those cases, 5500K is a solid choice for outdoor shooting. For indoor environments, you can check what temperature auto selects and manually lock it to that value.
ISO
ISO adds artificial light but introduces noise when pushed too high. Noise appears as small colorful pixels scattered throughout the image. On previous GoPros, anything above 400 to 800 ISO was problematic.
The Mission 1 Pro handles ISO much better, with 800 being very clean and 1600 still producing solid results. Using the range option is a great approach, setting it from 25 to 800 so the camera has flexibility while staying within a clean range.
Sharpness
Many action cameras crank sharpness up by default, which contributes to that over-processed action camera look. Setting sharpness to low gives you a much smoother and more cinematic image. You can always add sharpness in post, but you cannot remove it once it is baked into the footage. Low sharpness is the right call for the best results.
Noise Reduction
The denoise setting is preset to high. If you prefer to handle denoising in post using dedicated software, you can turn this down. If you want a simple workflow where clips go straight from camera to phone without any editing, leaving denoise on high works well and produces good results.
Slow Motion Settings
Continuous Slow Motion
All slow motion modes within the main video mode record continuously until you stop the recording. The standout slow motion setting to use is 4K at 240fps in 16×9.
The quality at this frame rate is genuinely impressive and delivers footage that looks beautifully cinematic and dramatically slowed down. Shots that were practically impossible to capture before are now achievable. For even slower results, 480fps is available at 1080p resolution.
Burst Slow Motion Mode
By swiping over to the dedicated slow motion mode and switching from normal slow motion to burst slow motion, you unlock 960fps at 1080p in 16×9. This is real 960fps capture, not AI-generated frame blending.
The level of detail and smoothness at this frame rate is remarkable. Even though burst slow motion is limited to 8 bit color, the footage still looks incredible. The fact that a camera this small and affordable can capture genuine 960fps is a significant achievement.
Low Light Mode
The Mission 1 Pro now has a dedicated low light mode, which is a welcome addition given that low light performance has historically been a weak point for GoPro cameras.
In this mode, ISO is set to auto and the camera is allowed to push to very high ISO values to expose properly in dark environments. The results are noticeably better than what was possible on previous GoPro models. If you regularly shoot in low light conditions, this mode is worth exploring.
Time Lapse Settings
In time lapse mode, you will first choose between motion and stationary. Motion is designed for hyperlapse style shots where you are walking or moving with the camera. Stationary is for fixed position time lapses.
From there, you can choose to capture video only, video plus JPEGs, or raw video plus JPEGs. The same principles from the video settings section apply here, so use the same color mode, bit depth, bit rate, and sharpness settings for consistency.
Photo Settings
Megapixel Options
In photo mode, you can choose between 12 megapixels and 50 megapixels. The 50 megapixel photos on this camera are genuinely stunning. In comparison tests with a Sony A1, while the Mission 1 Pro does not quite match the full-frame Sony, it outperforms every other action camera by a significant margin.
The main trade-off with 50 megapixels is buffer time. After each shot, the camera takes a moment to process the image. If that delay becomes frustrating or quality is not the top priority, 12 megapixels is a perfectly fine alternative.
Shooting Raw
One setting you definitely want to change in photo mode is switching from standard to raw. Raw photo files retain far more image data, which makes editing and retouching much easier and more flexible. This should be one of the first things you change in photo mode.
Additional Photo Settings
Shutter, EV comp, white balance, ISO, and color settings are all available in photo mode as well. For photos, lowering sharpness to produce a smoother base image is a good idea. The other settings can generally be left at their defaults unless you have specific creative needs for a shoot.
Final Thoughts
The GoPro Mission 1 Pro is a genuinely impressive piece of technology packed with features and settings that can produce results far beyond what you might expect from an action camera.
By following the setup and settings covered in this guide, including shooting in 4K with pixel binning for better dynamic range, locking your shutter speed to double your frame rate, using ND filters, setting sharpness to low, enabling 10 bit color at max bit rate, and exploring Cinematic or GP Log 2 color modes, you will be getting the absolute best out of this camera.