DJI Osmo Mobile

A few weeks ago Andrew and I started talking about video cameras and camera quality. For aerial shots, he has a DJI Mavic Pro drone that captures 4K video at 30 frames per second. For ground based video he has a Canon PowerShot SX520 HS and a Google Pixel 3a phone. He was considering several digital SLR cameras, but they were all pretty expensive. Somehow we got to talking about stabilized video. This lead to discussions about cameras and gimbals, including the DJI Osmo Pocket and the DJI Osmo Mobile 3. The Pocket has a built in camera, whereas the Mobile has a mount for a phone. Both can do really cool things, like Stabilized Video, Active Track, Motion Lapse, Hyper Lapse, and Dolly Zoom.

We started comparing the pros and cons of the Pocket versus the Mobile. The Pocket has a nice camera that can capture 4K video at 60 frames per second. Unfortunately, it is about three times more expensive than the Mobile. The Mobile allows you to attach any phone, so it is “upgradeable” with newer phones with better cameras, and it is relatively cheap.

Finally, we decided to go with the Mobile. When it arrived, Andrew started experimenting with it. Today, we went to Lake Washington and shot the sunset using the Motion Lapse feature. Note how the camera smoothly moves from a user-defined start point to a user-defined end point while capturing video at 1 frame per second, which causes the video to look sped up.

I think you’ll agree that the Osmo Mobile 3 is pretty amazing.