Wow, wow and wow…the DJI Osmo is an instant success…why ? My son was filming a friends wedding today down at Seamill in the Ayrshire coast and asked me if I could help him with the ceremony. The DJI Osmo arrived in Production Gear on Wednesday, shipped it for Thursday and it was raining all that day.
The camera can film 4K 25p, I set it to 1080 50p, you can control the ISO, shutter speed and WB via your smart phone and there is a mic input which I will be trying out tomorrow. It comes with one battery that lasts about one hour needless to say I have a spare battery on order (End of November).
Keep the ISO as low as the lighting conditions allow as the maximum ISO 3200 is a tad noisy. The other noise comes from the fan in the X3 camera itself and the inbuilt mic is not so good. The way round this is to use a radio mic which plugs into the 3.5m jack on the handle of the Osmo, the sound is far better.
Friday was the first day I had to play with my new Osmo but I was filming the wedding that afternoon so I decided to run a wee test at the wedding. For years I have dreamed of running around guests with a steadycam and today was payoff day.
There is a known bug at the moment where the horizon goes squint, I did encounter this a couple of times but re-started and things were fine, Simon from Production Gear tells me this will be cured in the next firmware.
The DJI has exceeded expectations, so much so I had to produce a 1.5m demo of my exploits. This new tool will be a major asset in my “box” of video tools…WOW !!!
A wee note : Sadly I sold my Ronin M as to be truthful I was not using it, the Ronin is such a specialised bit of kit. My tip when buying a Ronin is to get a carry case otherwise you will find yourself not using it, the DJI Osmo on the other hand is so small and comes with its very own case.
I think this 3 axis gimbal with X3 camera will become the defacto event tool for 2016.
it is impressive. Then again the sony technology of the active optical steadyshot of selected consumer camcorders uses a similar concept but in the lens instead of the entire camera and gives similar (stellar) results.
Let’s be honest here: any stabilization should be measured and evaluated on cameras with the cameraman walking from now on. Until now the stabilization was concentrated on adjusting the small shakes of the lens on tele. Which is good, but a totally different animal.
A gimbal in the lens of a shoulder mounted camera would be a dream . In particular for cameramen around 45-55 (years old), which is the standard of the R&G, news and event segment around the world.
At the price this is clearly a ‘must have’ piece of kit.
Hi Philip, I would like to highlight that anyone wishing to record sound indoors will be deeply disappointed by the very loud fan built into the camera housing! Make no mistake, this is a deal breaker for anyone wishing to capture live sound either with the builtin mic, and to a lesser extent, an external mic. Using an external mic outdoors may work with reasonable results, I have yet to test this however. Overall, a brilliant tool, but don’t buy if you’re looking to record clean sound indoors.
Thanks for this, Phil. I’ve read on several websites that the built-in mic is useless or even worse! If you can, please test it also with an external one and how it performs indoors / under lowlight conditions. Would it work as an interview device, basically. Thanks.
HDW : Yes is the answer if you use a radio mic and an XLR TX stub onto a short shotgun the sound is very respectable. Watch my up and coming overview of the JVC LS300 with V2 software.