We go hands-on with DJI’s Osmo!

While we spent the better half of the afternoon learning about and flying drones in DJI’s New Pilot Experience event, we managed to come across a new, recently released product by DJI: the Osmo. In layman’s terms, the Osmo is a handheld, gimbal stabilized camera that’s capable of shooting 4K video that’s insanely easy to use, and gives both hobbyists and serious filmmakers a slick new tool in creating videos.

First Impressions: A steadycam that can be used by anybody

Companies have spent an insane amount of time and money trying to stabilize cameras for smooth and silky video footage. While the Osmo is certainly not the first camera to try and do this, it’s possibly the most intuitive to use. If you’ve used any kind of GoPro stabilizing gyros and gimbals before, you know just how much of a pain in the butt they are to use. That’s the complete opposite of the Osmo – you’ll probably spend up to five minutes max figuring out how to use it, and once you get up and running, you’ll be shooting super-steady video in no time.

There’s no describing how intuitive the Osmo is. The controls are laid out in a logical manner, and once you turn it on, the Osmo will automatically sway with you as you move in a smooth manner. There’s an easy to reach and use directional pad on the Osmo’s control stick that you can use to manually pan and tilt the camera if you want, though the magic happens with the front trigger. Pressing it locks the Osmo to whatever orientation it is currently, and allows for some super-slick and steady shots, no matter how much movement you impart on it. Clicking on it twice resets the Osmo’s orientation to the front, and clicking on it thrice makes it rotate towards you for the ultimate selfie shot.

Let’s talk about the tech for a minute. The Osmo uses the same camera found on DJI’s Inspire1 drone. That gives users a 90-degree field of view, f/2.8 aperture and is capable of shooting 4K video, as well as 12-megapixel snaps. The smooth and steady action is achieved via a 3-axis stabilized gimbal outfitted with brushless motors. If you’ve seen the awesome videos on Unbox lately, you know we’ve been doing a lot of creative shots, shots that require specialized and bulky equipment like camera sliders and fluid heads attached to tripods. With the Osmo, we wouldn’t need those things – just the Osmo and the creativity of our new video editor.

Just like DJI’s drones, the Osmo requires the use of either an iOS or an Android device that serves as the display and control center. Here you can tweak with a myriad of features and settings for better control of your shot. What’s nice about the Osmo is that users can upgrade the head of the camera with a higher-end Zenumuse X5 and X5R gimbals that gives you the ability to mount Micro Four Thirds lenses for greater flexibility.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get our microSD card inside the Osmo for sample shots because it requires a Class 10 or UHS-1 compliant cards to work.

There are plenty of sample videos using the Osmo on YouTube of course, and we’ll be spending more time with the device later on this week when we nab our review unit from Henry’s, which is, incidentally where you can buy the thing for Php 33,990