DJI Osmo Mobile: Make Some Magic

The DJI Osmo Mobile turns your smartphone into a stabilized piece of semi-professional video equipment. Much like the gimbals on DJI’s drones, the Osmo Mobile is a three axis gimbal that will stabilize your smartphone. For a limited time, DJI is offering a free Osmo stand and extra battery.

With the improving quality of smartphone cameras, the handheld DJI Osmo takes your videos to a level that many would argue is professional quality. The Osmo Mobile is one of the best handheld gimbals on the market today, let’s find out why.

How it Works

The basic function of a handheld gimbal, like the Osmo Mobile, is to eliminate angular shake from video and to hold the camera horizontal at all times. Using a 3-axis gimbal, the DJI Osmo is able to eliminate nearly all angular shake from your videos.

The end result is professional-looking footage straight from your smartphone. You can use DJI’s GO app or you can record using your smartphone’s native camera. There are a few advantages that the DJI GO App brings to the table, let’s learn more.

Using DJI GO

The DJI GO app gives you access to settings and features that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to access. We will discuss the features that work the best and you will be most likely to use.

Pitch Lock Setting

Pitch lock keeps your camera tilted at the same up/down angle all the time until you change it with the joystick. By default, this feature is turned off. Like many users, we prefer to have it turned on.

Timelapse

Many smartphones will include a timelapse feature but the DJI GO app also includes one that has some extra features. You can choose to have the gimbal active or for it to lock, like the gimbal is a tripod. The stabilized timelapse is great for capturing “hyperlapse” videos (a moving timelapse).

MotionLapse

Set the gimbal down on its base or on a tripod and capture a timelapse as the camera slowly pans across a scene. This is one of our favorite features and not something you can capture any other way.

Slow Motion

Depending on the capabilities of your smartphone you can take extremely smooth slow motion videos using your Osmo Mobile.

ActiveTrack

DJI has one of the more advanced object tracking algorithms on the market. Unfortunately, it often is not advanced enough. It has a difficult time with fast-moving subjects but does a nice job with subjects that move at a consistent pace.

3X3 Pano

There is a 9-image stitch mode that lets you take wide angle picture photos. This feature works well if you want to take a picture that has a wider field of view than the standard 30 to 35 mm equivalent focal length that most smartphone cameras have. This feature will save you from needing to stitch images in PhotoShop after-the-fact.

Less Useful Features

The DJI GO app has other features that we will discuss briefly. The 180° and 330° let you take ultra-wide panoramic images. Given how narrow the vertical field of view is in these shots, we don’t see much use for these.

The long exposure image capture options seem pretty useless in practice. We recommend an actual mobile phone tripod for this kind of shot. Even with a tripod, long exposure images from a mobile phone are not great. You can tell that DJI’s marketing and engineering departments are not completely in sync. While this feature is marketed on DJI’s website, the user manual makes no mention of the long exposure function.

Recording a Wide-Angle Video

The Osmo Mobile can even be used with a GoPro or similar action camera. We strongly recommend using this inexpensive bracket to help you balance the GoPro and let you see and access the touch screen.

You’ll have to hold the Osmo in a slightly different manner than you would with your smartphone, but it does a nice job of capturing wide angle images and video. You can also use a wide angle lens adaptor on your smartphone. These lenses vary a lot in quality, we had decent results with this one.

For a complete breakdown on how to get a wide field of view video on your Osmo Mobile check out our YouTube video on the topic below.

Accessories

Unlike many handheld gimbals, you can replace the battery on the Osmo mobile. The batteries are compatible with other Osmo devices should you ever choose to upgrade later. You can also get an external charger to speed up the charging process.

The Osmo Base is an invaluable tool. It is so quick and easy to use. It is the ultimate poor-man’s tripod and it includes a standard quarter-inch tripod thread on the bottom

You will want to attach your Osmo to a tripod at some point. The attachment point on the side of the Osmo Mobile is very small so you need a custom small tripod adapter.

When it comes to a tripod we can’t recommend DJI’s feeble tripod which is a glorified monopod. We recommend this Dolica tripod instead.

The Osmo Mobile comes with a nice soft bag, but a hard case will help keep your gimbal protected.

Should I Get a DJI Osmo Mobile?

If you are looking to use your smartphone or action camera to capture smooth video footage then you should definitely consider the DJI Osmo Mobile. The DJI GO app gives you access to additional video capture modes that give professional and consumer users the ability to create unique videos that can only be captured on a handheld gimbal.

Check the current price of the DJI Osmo Mobile

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