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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1318513
Pocket Production Think about it a minute. You’re a company that has some of the best camera stabilizing technology in the business. You also make amazingly small and lightweight cameras drones that offer extraordinary imaging quality for their size and weight. You’re also at the top of heap when it comes to building hardware and software interface systems. Why not put it all together into a pocket-size stabilized camera? That’s exactly what DJI did with its revolutionary Osmo Pocket that was just updated to the DJI Pocket 2. And that doesn’t make the Pocket some sort of slapped-together Franken-camera. DJI’s attention to detail and level of design innovation makes the Pocket eminently usable and just plain fun, whether capturing family videos or if you’re a social media scion with a taste for action and the need to travel light. Very light, in this case. But add the aptly-named Do-It-All handle and the Micro-Tripod and you’re all set for location production. The camera and gimbal will look familiar to any of DJI’s drone fans, with a snap-on mount for an accessory super-wide-angle lens or available neutral density filters. (On its own, the f1.8 lens provides a 93-degree field of view). Behind the lens is a 64-megapixel, 1/1.7” CMOS sensor that can output up to 4K video at 60 frames per second. In side-by-side testing we did, the image quality from the camera is comparable to our iPhone 11 Pro, albeit without the Pro’s post-processing. As with DJI’s Mavic drones, the footage and stills it captures can be used alongside those of the better still and video cameras and not look out of place. We did note that it took the Pocket 2 a few seconds to load a 64MP image onto the micro-SD card, which needs have fast enough read/write speeds to support the Pocket’s 4K video output. The videos are H.264/MP4 compressed and mages are captured as either as JPEG or DNG raw files. In the handle is the remarkably bright touch-sensitive display, apparently using the same technology as DJI’s pro-level drone controllers. Nearly all the options and controls can be accessed by sliding a finger up, down, or across the screen. To go beyond the basics, the Pocket has a Pro mode, allowing you to control more granular camera and recording settings. The touch-screen menus will also expand to control accessories that are attached. For a larger display/viewfinder, you can use one of the included adapters to mount the Pocket 2 to the Lightning or USB-C connector on your phone, which will automatically launch the Mimo app. The attachment is solid enough to hold the camera as long as you’re reasonably careful moving around. This adapter slides into a mount just under the display and above the shutter and function buttons. It can be replaced with either a blank plate or the marvelous Mini Control Stick, which contains an OM 4-like joystick and second function button. The joystick can be used for zoom or pan/tilt control.