DJI Pocket 2 – Handheld 3-Axis Gimbal Stabilizer with 4K Camera, 1/1.7” CMOS, 64MP Photo, Pocket-Sized, ActiveTrack 3.0, Glamour Effects, YouTube TikTok Video Vlog, for Android and iPhone, Black

I won’t lie I was tremendously skeptic about something this small and lightweight being able to produce any kind of good quality photo. Sometimes you’ll get something that advertises one thing but then when you get it there’s pixelation and distortion. I was tremendously proven wrong! This thing gives amazing photos and videos! I do videography on the side and one of my obstacles has been packing so much equipment and getting it through airport, to unload it on the other side, to get it into the car and then on to my event. For smaller events that don’t require a lot this thing is absolutely amazing. And the best thing is it can fit in your back pocket.
The one thing that I did not know in advance is what was needed for live streaming. I assume that once I connected my phone to the camera which provides a bigger screen for you to see what you’re filming, I thought that I could stream through my phone. You cannot. You have to have the transmitter that fits into the bottom of this device in order to stream. The device calls $99 here on Amazon. The gimbal itself is very functional and it’s tracking. What I mean by that is if you are walking it doesn’t necessarily do a quick tracking that sometimes causes the camera to move too quickly. It’s more of a slow gentle glide which is great depending on what you’re filming. The downside to that is if you’re filming something where you are moving rather quickly the gimbal will lose the subject and you’ll have to recalibrate it again. All in all I would highly suggest this for anyone looking to do great photos or video while traveling.
As far as it being water resistant I do not dare to try that out yet. But I’m currently just enjoying how this works. Battery life could be a little better. After 45 minutes of continuous filming I was down to 27% battery. And that was from it being charged 100%. So if you need to film longer this is a challenge as to the charging port may make it difficult for you to charge and film at the same time. You definitely would not be able to plug in your phone and the charger at the same time on the gimbal. All in all is a great product I highly recommend it

I had the first Osmo Pocket for two years and I really enjoyed it, it had a few downsides though like when a room was even a little dim, you could see visual noise in the footage and photos. Also whether you were outside or inside, the contrast and exposure were sometimes all over the place. The only way to TRY to fix it was to adjust the settings manually for each shot…but even then…there were limitations.

This Osmo Pocket 2 is much better in the sense that when I filmed the same dim rooms or low light settings, the camera performed much better with little to no visual noise. The contrast and exposures are much more even. If you’re filming a landscape that is in shadow, but there’s a bright sky, this Osmo Pocket will adjust the light so you can see the ground and landscape -which is an improvement because the last pocket would adjust for the sky and make the landscape look even darker.

The Pocket 2 also has better sound, its clearer and sound tracking allows it so the microphones pick up wherever the camera is pointed. I generally use an external mic, so I’ll admit I haven’t used the built-in mic features much. The Pocket 2 also starts up faster, but the power button is now a separate button on the side of the camera, be careful not to accidentally press the button when you’re taking the camera out of the case or pushing it into the case.

Speaking of case, the last Osmo was held into the case with a silicone strap, this one doesn’t use a strap, it uses friction…which I think is a bad idea because over time It will wear away at the sides of the camera, making it look bad. I can already tell that’s whats going to happen.

The camera advertises 4k and HDR.. BUT what they don’t tell you is that the HDR is not available on the 4k setting, it is only available on the 1080p setting. That being said, the 4k setting by itself is a vast improvement over the first Pocket, and by doing a bit of color grading in post-production, it could pass for HDR footage.

I was a bit confused when I bought it because DJI kept saying this has zoom, but they went back and forth as if it not only possessed digital zoom but also optical zoom. Let me clear that up. THERE IS NO OPTICAL zoom not even 2x optical zoom. It uses digital zoom only, which I personally don’t like, so I don’t use it.

The camera still gets warm when shooting in 4k mode, however it doesn’t get nearly as hot as the first Pocket. My first pocket would get so hot the camera would shut down. This one doesn’t. At least it hasn’t yet. I like the little joy stick that comes with the camera. It allows you to move the gimball without neading to physically move your arm. This is useful for steadycam walking footage where you need to suddenly look up or down without switching to FPV mode. Just use the joystick. It moves the gimball at only 1 speed, but its a slow steady speed which is still good for getting steady footage. It would be cool if DJI incorporated software that allowed it to speed up or slow down from that speed when you push the joystick…but otherwise its a nice feature.

If you’re new to Osmo Pocket, it is NOT an action cam, and it is NOT a lowlight cam. It’s best use is for daytime/sunset vlogging, walking tour, steadycam, or getting high-quality footage in a convenient pocket size. So don’t get it wet, and don’t try to shoot in near darkness or extreme sports.

Everything in your shot is always in-focus, so don’t expect the kind of background blurring you get with DSLR’s focus. But if you want that kind of blurring, you can do that with Adobe Premiere Pro or Photoshop, so don’t worry. I have shot near-DSLR quality footage with this camera and after doing some adjustments in post-production it looks amazing. I highly recommend this camera for vloggers, or for professionals when you need some extra camera work done with convenience.

As for the camera, the old pocket advertized a 12 MP camera, this one advertises a 64 MP camera. Normally that would mean the 64 MP would have a resolution almost 5 times the size…but in this case, the resolution is only a little bit bigger, the difference is in the camera’s ability to capture detail.

I really like this camera, I think its a huge improvement over the original Osmo, for me it is the perfect camera. I personally don’t need any other cameras because this one does everything I need it to do. But I know a guy who uses this camera ALONG WITH his DSLR and he gets great footage that he pieces together into a cool video.

So try it out. I think you’ll like it.

Great video quality and stabilization in such a small size. Easy to use, only the set up is a little slow. Even though the screen is a little bit small, it works great to touch and very easy to view. ( only 2 months of use)

I love my gimbal so thought I’d take it up a notch. Small and compact which travels well. Comes with a case and adapters. Battery life is pretty good on a full charge it lasted me almost 2 days on my cruise just randomly taking pics and video. Has a lot of different functions. Easy to use and set up. I’ll be back for the 3 though since the screen is slightly bigger but overall I love it!

The camera appears to be well built and should be easy to carry and use but I don’t really know because after about three hours I still cannot use it. It turns on just fine and seems to work but here’s the deal.

It arrived missing a few minor parts, like the piece you need to connect to a cell phone and the windscreen for the remote microphone. Not a deal breaker, just get those but use the camera while I wait? So, I called Amazon and they could not have been more helpful. They referred me to the camera company who sent me back to Amazon. I am getting the missing parts so now I am back to learning about the camera.

I went on the Apple Store and downloaded the application for the camera. That wanted to hook up to my Wi-Fi system but when it attempted to hook up it immediately asked for my password for the camera. As I had not previously set up an account or password, I have no idea what that password might be. I was unable to attach the camera application or the camera to my Wi-Fi. That has still not been resolved.

In looking at the documentation for the camera and account I was presented with the usual verbiage you have to agree to and I always read these. What I found was the normal language and the part that said that I had to agree to comply with Chinese law with anything that I might do with the camera, and that if I did not agree with Chinese law they could prosecute me. Given all of the controversy over tik-tok. I would think that would give you some concern using this camera.

Next, I decided to download the instruction manual as the camera comes with almost no instructions at all. The instruction manual is actually pretty good and shows you how to use the various parts of the camera. It’s a complicated little piece of equipment that takes some learning, but I think some time with the instruction manual and using the camera you can figure it all out.

At this point I open the application on my iPhone and discovered something called the DJI Mimo Academy. This is loaded with videos on telling you how to use the camera and giving you examples of things you can do. You would think that would be very useful, and if it was in English instead of Chinese that would probably be true. It does have subtitles, but I can tell you it’s very difficult to follow the action they are presenting and read the subtitles. I even did it on a bigger screen so that I can see it better and it still doesn’t help.

So what we actually have here is a pretty good camera that:
1. Is set up for people in China.
2. That you have to agree to Chinese law to use.
3. It has a screen the size of a US quarter to control the camera (not bad once you know how to use it)
4. What appears to be a very responsive customer service number if you didn’t buy the camera through Amazon.
5. and considerable frustration trying to learn how to use this thing and get it all set up.

I’m going to persevere and will probably add to this later after I learned how to actually use this little camera. I’m still trying to figure out if it’s worth being required to comply with Chinese law on this camera.