A second lens makes DJI’s Osmo Pocket 4P my new favorite video camera

DJI’s Osmo Pocket 4P is simply a beautiful elemental proposition: an Osmo Pocket 4 pinch a 2nd camera lens slapped inside. But is that other lens worthy the added size, weight, and costs comparative to the regular Pocket 4? And really does it comparison to the only rival connected the market, Insta360’s dual-lens Luna Ultra?

It depends connected what you’re filming. But I deliberation astir prospective buyers would get plentifulness of usage retired of the 4P’s 3x telephoto lens, and its value is surely impressive. Meanwhile, DJI has managed to undercut Insta360 connected value while astatine slightest matching it connected quality. For most, this will beryllium the amended buy, though the Luna Ultra has 1 awesome advantage: You tin really bargain it successful the US.

DJI’s travails successful the US continue, and it won’t beryllium releasing the Pocket 4P successful the country, contempt launches elsewhere. In Europe, it costs £529 / €599 (about $680) for the Standard Combo set, which includes a capable light, transportation pouch, and a grip pinch a tripod thread. For many, it’ll beryllium worthy spending other to get the £605 / €689 ($785) Vlog Combo, which besides bundles successful a larger transportation case, a compact tripod, a DJI Mic Mini 2, and the FrameTap remote.

There had been hope that thing remarkably like the Pocket 4P mightiness look from Xtra, a institution which popped up successful the aftermath of DJI’s prohibition from the US, trading suspiciously akin products. That now looks unlikely: Xtra has delisted its Muse 2 Pro, halted preorders, and refunded deposits, while the FCC useful to crack down connected alleged DJI beforehand companies. In short, don’t clasp your activity for a US type of the Pocket 4P unless the FCC originates to suffer its crippled of whack-a-mole.

If you are successful a state wherever the Pocket 4P is connected sale, what you’re getting really is simply a related to the Pocket 4, which I reviewed successful April. It has the nonstop aforesaid assemblage and controls, including an identical flip-out touchscreen, isolated from insignificant cosmetic differences. It has an almost identical main camera, though location are immoderate cardinal differences I’ll get to successful a minute. The software, stabilization, signaling options, and in-built retention are each either identical, aliases adjacent capable to count.

Almost each alteration is simply a ripple effect from the awesome caller addition: a 2nd lens. This 3x telephoto (or 60mm equivalent) sits supra the default camera and is simply a remarkably adjacent lucifer successful specs. It uses a somewhat smaller sensor, a 1/1.28-inch-type, alternatively than 1-inch, but makes up for that pinch a faster f/1.8 aperture, alternatively of f/2.0. It supports successful the aforesaid resolutions (4K scenery aliases 3K portrait), shoots akin 37-megapixel stills, and tin beryllium utilized successful low-light, slow-motion, and timelapse modes. About the only spot you can’t usage it is panoramas.

The value of the telephoto is impressive. Details are crisp, helped by the aforesaid awesome gimbal stabilization that keeps the main lens dependable — I recorded immoderate astonishingly unchangeable footage from a mini vessel travel connected a blustery time successful the North Sea. I worried the larger camera mightiness make stabilization trickier, but I needn’t person — if anything, my footage from the 4P feels more unchangeable than from the 4.

The Pocket 4P is tin of signaling 4K footage astatine up to 12x zoom, but beyond 6x you will spot the value statesman to driblet off. At 12x footage feels a small soft, specifications mislaid and matter blurry, and I wouldn’t urge zooming that acold unless you really person to.

It’s amended up close. The wide f/1.8 aperture creates a comparatively tight extent of section pinch a compressed background, meaning beautiful optical bokeh. That’s perfect for maine — this is an fantabulous camera for shooting products — but besides makes it a awesome camera for image video aliases filming pets.

There’s a slight, short judder successful footage erstwhile you move betwixt lenses while recording. Occasionally I’ve noticed a displacement successful colour astatine the aforesaid time, though for the astir part, footage from the 2 cameras looks similar.

The quality is astatine slightest successful portion because the main camera has superior move range, up to 17 stops, on pinch supporting DJI’s caller 10-bit D Log 2 colour profile. Those are the main upgrades that the Pocket 4P’s main camera has complete the Pocket 4’s — this is simply a caller sensor, but successful the aforesaid size and solution arsenic before, and pinch the aforesaid aperture lens. In astir lighting, the upgrades are slight, only coming to the fore successful trickier conditions, though the camera still shows immoderate evident limits erstwhile shooting successful the dark.

Welcome arsenic the telephoto is, it does travel pinch downsides. Size is the evident one. At 230g, the Pocket 4P is astir 40g heavier than its small sibling. And while the assemblage of each camera is identical, the gimbal and lens servants of the state present is astir doubly the size, making this taller and wider overall. This is still a remarkably compact, lightweight camera, and the other weight isn’t capable to make it uncomfortable to use. But it does consciousness conscionable a small little pocketable than before, which mightiness beryllium a limitation if you chiefly want this for travel.

The caller creation makes maine a small worried astir durability too. When the camera is off, the 2 lenses now look forwards, alternatively than sideways into the gimbal arm, meaning they’re wholly exposed. That’s made worse since DJI nary longer offers a gimbal clamp for the camera, a protective measurement I miss. Instead, the lenses are somewhat recessed. That offers a small protection from scuffs and scratches, but makes it easier for particulate to cod inside. You’ll want to support a cleaning cloth to hand, and the camera mightiness request much babying than erstwhile generations.

DJI says the Pocket 4P will past for 210 minutes of use, half an hr little than the Pocket 4. That’s still plentifulness for maine though. Charging is the same, pinch a afloat complaint successful 32 minutes, and retention is unchanged too: 107GB built-in, pinch support for 1TB microSD cards.

The package acquisition is broadly akin too. There are 3 buttons and a joystick connected the device, pinch astir of the settings accessed by swiping 1 measurement aliases different connected the flip-out 2-inch touchscreen. It’s occasionally fiddly fixed the size, and I still swipe the incorrect measurement much often than I’d attraction to admit, but it mostly works. The awesome caller summation to the 4P is simply a caller multi-person search option, which tin observe aggregate subjects while pursuing the personification successful the center.

More breathtaking is support for DJI’s FrameTap, a mini wireless touchscreen that lets you power the Pocket 4P from a distance. The FrameTap was introduced successful April pinch the larger Osmo Mobile 8P gimbal, but this is the first Pocket instrumentality to support it. You tin commencement recording, usage the joystick to move the gimbal aliases zoom successful and out, and entree a fewer basal controls on pinch playback. You can’t entree each mounting however, and you’re oddly incapable to alteration solution aliases framework complaint from the FrameTap.

FrameTap support is beautiful transparently a consequence to Insta360’s Luna Ultra, which launched earlier this twelvemonth pinch its ain dual stabilized cameras successful a akin design. The Luna Ultra’s unsocial characteristic is letting you propulsion disconnected the full beforehand sheet to usage arsenic a remote; DJI’s FrameTap is simply a simpler solution to the aforesaid problem, pinch the downside that there’s nary measurement to connect the distant to the camera erstwhile it’s not successful use.

The 2 cameras are different remarkably akin successful specs. The Insta360 has the advantage of offering 8K signaling from the main camera, but the caller DJI has amended artillery life, wider move range, superior slow motion, and double the built-in storage. All that, and it’s £150 / €130 ($150) cheaper successful Europe, making this a beautiful unequivocal winner. The biggest point the Luna Ultra has going for it is that it’s really on waste successful the US, for $769.99.

Taken together, the Osmo Pocket 4P is an almost unqualified success. It combines flimsy improvements to the Pocket 4’s main camera pinch a full caller telephoto that delivers awesome capacity successful its ain right, including really charismatic bokeh. There are mini downsides to portability and artillery life, which are bully reasons to for illustration the Pocket 4 if you don’t expect to make afloat usage of the telephoto here. But different the Pocket 4P is amended than some its DJI stablemate and its Insta360 rival, and is undoubtedly the type of this shape facet I’m astir tempted to bargain for myself.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge