Markiplier opened the dry cabinet in his office, the one he keeps under lock and key, and pulled out a lens that registers on a Geiger counter. That detail alone signals the kind of filmmaker who takes gear seriously, which is exactly why his verdict on the GoPro Mission One ILS carries more weight than a standard tech rundown. The question he set out to answer was simple and genuinely useful: can a $700 camera hold its own against a $7,000 cinema body, and if it can, what does that mean for everyone who has been priced out of the filmmaking world?
The handle that cost as much as the whole camera
Markiplier walked in holding a RED Komodo X, an entry-level cinema camera that starts at $6,995. The lens attached to it runs another four or five thousand dollars. The starter package adds roughly $2,000 more, and, as he noted after checking the product page himself, that still does not include the monitor. Then came the comparison that stopped the conversation cold: the handle for the RED costs $699. The entire GoPro ILS, body included, also starts at $699. ‘The entire ILS is the same price as the handle,’ he said, and left that sitting in the air for a moment.
With a media mod at around $150, a lens at $350, and an audio accessory at roughly $120, the full GoPro kit lands at about $1,400. He rounded to $1,500 and pointed out that this made it almost exactly one-tenth the cost of the RED body alone, before accessories. The footage running throughout the piece, including the shots of him holding the RED and talking directly to the audience, was captured on the GoPro ILS.
Where the cheaper camera actually won
Markiplier shot the comparison footage using Minolta lenses on both cameras, matched as closely as possible in focal length and field of view, drawn from the same manufacturing era and the same lens family. He is not a newcomer to this glass: he described knowing the Minolta line in detail, and his office holds a dry-storage cabinet specifically for lens preservation.
The frame rate comparison landed as the sharpest surprise. The RED Komodo X tops out at 4K 120 frames per second. The GoPro ILS hits 4K 240 frames per second. ‘If slow motion is what you need, this at one-tenth the price is kicking this thing’s ass,’ he said. ‘That’s nuts.’ On resolution, the RED reaches 8K 60, and the GoPro reaches 6K 80, a real gap. But on slow motion, and on many of the standard side-by-side shots he compared, the GoPro matched the RED or, in his assessment, beat it.
He also confirmed he has already placed shots from the ILS into his film Iron Lung, using the equivalent Minolta lens on the GoPro body. He described the camera physically as ‘like holding a pair of baby shoes,’ noting that the lens he mounted on it is physically larger than the camera body itself.
Why Markiplier thinks a film school could buy ten of them
The piece moved quickly from personal enthusiasm to a practical argument for access. A school, film club, or AV program that might budget for one cinema camera could purchase ten GoPro ILS units for the same money. Students drop gear. They push it into tight spaces, crawl spaces, and corners trying for a shot. A camera built rugged at $700 absorbs that reality in a way a $7,000 body cannot.
Markiplier also pointed to the ILS sensor format, a 3×2 open gate design, as particularly suited for anamorphic lenses, and gave a specific callout to a small lens manufacturer whose probe lenses he credited for making certain shots in Iron Lung possible in the first place.
The dry cabinet with a key in the lock
Back on the shelf in Markiplier’s office: a dry storage cabinet for lenses, locked with a physical key, housing glass that ticks a Geiger counter when the door swings open.
If the GoPro ILS spends enough time next to that cabinet, it will eventually need its own shelf.
