Backbone Insta360 ONE R mod: Use manual lenses on your action camera

The modular nature of the Insta360 ONE R brings with it some intriguing possibilities, including this interchangeable lens system from Backbone.

Backbone Insta360 ONE R interchangeable lens mod. Image: CreatorUp.

When I reviewed the Insta360 ONE R 1-inch Edition I mooted the possibility of an interchangeable lens mount module for it. One of the commenters on the article pointed out that a company called Backbone had already made such a thing. Fast forward a couple of weeks and YouTube producer CreatorUp has produced a video showing the results you can get from it.

The module allows MFT and C-mount lenses to be used with the camera. Bu the question you might ask is why you would want to do this with an action camera?

Backbone has been making these sorts of modifications to action cameras for years, and one of the primary reasons is if you want to use the camera as a crash cam or in extremely confined spaces. Being able to change the lens allows you to get shots that look nothing like an action camera, especially if you output to an external recorder.

However this new mod for the ONE R 1-inch Edition module has a huge advantage over the GoPro, and indeed the alternative modification for the 4K Wide Angle module, and that’s the size of the sensor. Because it has a much larger sensor than other action cameras, in fact a similar size to the one used in cameras like the Sony PXW-Z90, there’s much more opportunity for DOF effects. In addition the camera records at 5.3K resolution giving you oversampled 4K final output.

As I showed in my review of the unit, the compression system can be challenged sometimes, but in the right circumstances it produces a really good image. This means that if ever there was a good action camera candidate for an interchangeable lens mode, the ONE R is it.

Even rigged up it is still a tiny system, and it gives you the option of using both zoom lenses and even some of the latest anamorphic lenses that have come to market recently.

The beauty of the Backbone modification is that unlike the GoPro mod you can simply replace the interchangeable lens mount mod with either the 4K wide angle or dual lens 360 mod and you have your action camera back again.

Watch the CreatorUp video below, which is quite comprehensive, to see what it can do. If there was one limitation it’s that currently there is no HDMI output for an external recorder. Regardless of what you think of the idea, having more tools at our disposal is always a good thing.