DJI Pocket 3 | The Most Honest Review on the Internet

it's so good and it's so bad this is probably the most honest review of the pocket 3 that you are going to find on the internet I don't think it's going to make me any friends at DJI and my opinions might be a bit polarizing enjoy this is the new DJI osmo pocket 3 that's so it's cool it's good it's good for one person you know he tracking on this is awesome watch the gimbal yeah wow do not buy DJI products ever I don't believe that anybody has used this camera more than me in the past 3 months well hello everybody and welcome to another video we' got arrested if we got caught right making my way back down now I think I do a better job filming in public when I'm frustrated we've arrived in Istanbul welcome to uland B oh that is cold C spin spin oh that's the shot there's the shot as you can see I have put this osmo pocket 3 through its Paces well and truly this is not a sponsored video but I've been asked so many questions about this camera by so many people especially friends of mine in the YouTube space that I felt compelled to make this video would I suggest you buy one no and I will elaborate further on that towards the end of the video now if you've clicked onto this video you've never been to this channel before I'm a landscape photographer I travel all over the world and do most of my YouTube filming out in the field in quite harsh environment my main video vlogging camera at the minute is this a Fuji xt4 with this fluffy mic on the top although occasionally I will use the DJI radio mics as well for the past 10 years I've constantly been searching for what is the best vlogging camera I'm looking for value for money compact lightweight sturdy excellent image quality most importantly low light capability I do a lot of filming in the dark that's pre sunrise or as the sun begins to set cuz I'm out doing landscape photography I make travel videos so I'm in airports I'm in a car I'm on the road I'm moving around so I need a camera that can do all of that that is fathree easy and it just works the xt4 came close the image quality and low lights are excellent on this the autofocus is shockingly bad so I always use manual focus but all in all this camera is tough sturdy can handle the weather it's relatively Compact and lightweight hence it being my main camera for the past several years so let me talk about some of the reasons why this pocket 3 is beginning to overtake the xt4 one the image quality out of this camera is incredible you can see I'm overlaying it now on screen it just looks fantastic the depth of field you get from this lens the codec that this uses I shoot in dlog M10 bit which essentially is a flat profile designed for video creators to color grade the footage but I don't color grade my footage from this camera I like the flat profile of the dlog it looks very similar to my XT 4's Eterna profile as you can see this camera is small and lightweight it's also versatile you can add extensions to it as I've got a stand on here you can make it nice and small so you can just fit this in your pocket it comes with a nice little case that you can protect it and put this in your pocket you know it's not going to get into any trouble so in terms of compactness and well as I've just mentioned lightweight uh this ticks all of the boxes you don't even know you have this camera on you when out in the field or traveling or running around now here's what surprised me most about this camera the low light capabilities of this osmo pocket 3 it's some [Music] voodo [Music] oh [Music] now I don't quite understand how a 1-in sensor can deliver such good image quality in such low light I shoot this in near dark the image comes out crisp clean sharp vibrant and I don't know how because my xt4 can't do that but this it looks incredible it it truly does and it it blows my mind every time I switch the camera on when it's getting dark outside now when I'm out making my YouTube videos I typically don't like to have the camera in my hand and Vlog like this I prefer this static on a tripod and that can present some challenges when moving around reposition in my main camera whilst taking a photograph but this has face tracking I was skeptical at first but I have to say it works about 90% of the time I lock this onto my face and then as I walk around working the scene or doing whatever the camera will follow me we are geared up this is really sketchy like one wrong move and them off okay this will be great now it's not perfect because most of the time it frames your face here like in the middle of the of the shot and as a video creator you'll know that you want to be in the upper third with a bit of head room so that would be my main criticism of the face tracking on this camera is that it tends to position your face slap bang in the middle of frame making it look like a poorly composed shot although In fairness this only tends to happen when framing a medium shot when you're a couple of meters away from the camera when you're doing close-ups it's actually very good the autofocus on this is pretty good it locks onto my face about 90% of the time I don't believe there's an option on this to lock Focus or certainly to manual focus like I do with my xt4 so you are relying on the camera the battery life on this camera is perfectly acceptable the small battery in this camera will last for a few hours out shooting a couple of hours depending on how much you're using it but if you buy the Creator bundle which by the way if you are going to buy this camera you need to buy the Creator bundle U I don't know why they bother selling this camera by itself but with the Creator bundle you get the microphone which we'll talk about shortly and of course you get this battery extender another great thing I would say though is it's incredibly fast charging if I plug this into a decent USB charger it will go from0 to 80% in like I haven't timed it I'm not going to time it but 15 minutes or something it's very very fast charging now this has a fixed 24 mm equivalent lens and that is perfectly acceptable I'd rather have a lens that's a bit too narrow and a bit too wide wide lenses for me they just they they're handy but they don't look overly cinematic 24 mil is acceptable now you can zoom with this camera but it's a digital Zoom not an optical zoom Zoom however I have found that the digital Zoom is perfectly acceptable like when I'm editing this in Adobe premere I can't really see a huge degradation in image quality on the frames that are zoomed in versus the frames that are full 4K zoomed out the final positive that I'm going to say about this camera is to do with the audio if you buy the Creator bundle you get this radio mic you switch the radio mic on they instantly syn up together and then of course you can have fantastic clean audio no matter how far from the camera you are all right we've got good news and bad news the good news is the snow is coming down it really is the bad news is we've hit traffic but what's great what's so clever and I really thank DJI for for doing this is that it will actually record audio not only from the microphone here but it will record audio in camera as well use the audio from this and use the audio from this and it's great as a backup it's it's great to get Ambient sound and then cut into when you're speaking and it's amazing the audio quality from this is good if you're in the correct environment oh I'm so wet I am so wet I'm soaking man I just need to I need to get changed okay what a disaster if you're in a busy environment with lots of Ambient sound it's going to pick it all up and it's going to be messy and not very clean audio that's when you're definitely going to want this microphone and although it's cold probably about -4 right now- 15 but all the warm gear uh you don't feel it but it's fantastic such a cool experience I love coming to places you know like new experiences and although it is cold probably about -4 right now- 15 but all the warm gear uh you don't feel it it's fantastic such a cool experience I love coming to places you know like new experiences that I think that's a great initiative by DJI so well done so that's all the positives lots of benefits for YouTubers and creators but there are some caveat some warnings and a lot of negatives and there is one reason in particular why I would say do not buy one of these cameras but first let me thank the sponsor of this video very quickly if you don't mind the sponsor of this video is Squarespace now if you don't know who Squarespace are there an all-in-one website building platform now if you're a YouTuber you're thinking about buying this camera and you want to start using YouTube channel and make videos well you're almost certainly going to want a website now rather than hiring an expensive web design company or learning to code it yourself which would be an incredible undertaking uh complex and certainly something I couldn't manage well I would just recommend using Squarespace they have a very intuitive and simple dragon drop system where you can build a very professional looking website in like 24 hours I know genuinely because I've done it myself I've built a couple of websites in the past and assuming you have all of your media and your copy ready 24 hours you'll have a live website you can even register your own domain have a nice online Gallery you can even have a members area so build your own Community which is a great feature so if you're fancy giving that a go go to squarespace.com heon and you'll get a free try if you like that free trial use the offer code Heaton for 10% off your'll first purchase now onto the annoyances with this camera and the things that just drive me mad let me begin with a very cynical thought that I had so when I was buying this camera I emailed DJI and I said hello DJI man woman whatever will the DJI wireless mics which are only about a year old will they work with this camera can I take one of these switch it on and it will connect you'd think it would because this camera has a built-in receiver but she said no you have to get all these attachments and then it'll work so basically what you've got to do is faf on to get these mics to work with this camera of course for a nice seamless frictionless solution you can buy the new DJI mic um and that really annoyed me like are you telling me that in a room of technicians and Camera designers nobody thought to make the transmitter or sorry the receiver in this osmo pocket 3 compatible with their here I'm not a technician I could be wrong and if I am I apologize but surely it's not hard to have the receiver in this camera pick up a frequency or at least have the ability to pick up a frequency from these cameras these cameras which people have already paid for and only been using for a few months so there's my first probably admittedly baseless complaint but it just bugged me the next negative I have is um I think it's understandable I don't think it's it's a big deal and I also don't think there much of a way around it but that is weather ceiling on this camera I wouldn't trust this in any kind of inclement weather whether it was drizzle rain you know wet snow um I think if this thing even saw any water it wouldn't last 2 minutes and that you know it's understandable you can't expect them to make it waterproof as well as everything else but it is a consideration if you're going to use this out in the field another thing that annoys me about this camera is when the microphone is connected to the camera there is a message on the screen to tell you that the mic is connected that message takes up 50% of the screen so I can't see what I'm recording for about 5 to 10 seconds of the camera being switched on that is uh that is annoying when when you're working and it's cold and you're working fast and you want to get the shot and this flipping message pops up and then you got to get it away with you it's just it's not good those negatives are not that bad you could live with them really there there's no way are they a deal breaker but there is one negative and the negative that I have is why I would suggest that you do not buy one of these cameras and that is they're not reliable two or 3 weeks ago I was in Mongolia searching for snow leopards and we've been searching for leopards for an entire week finally we got a sighting of a snow leopard and had to hike up this enormous hike up this mountain to find the snow leopard I was so excited not only to photograph the snow leopard but to make a video about the process about the adventure I got my camera out switched it on nothing it was dead the battery was fully charged there was a green light to indicate that the camera was doing something but the screen was black and the gimbal was inactive ironically I'm filming this on the osmo pocket 2 because my osmo pocket 3 inexplicably failed and stopped working at the most crucial worst time ever I turned it off turned it back on tried this several times I I attached the battery extender grip and nothing worked it was dead I've been searching for a snow leopard for 7 days this was the culmination of a huge video the final scene and I had no camera to record it that is unforgivable absolutely unforgivable and the thing is it's DJI products in general I have sent products back to DJI many times in the past so when this failed at the bottom of the mountain after a week of search of snow lards I was not only devastating I was so angry do not buy DJI products ever the drawing right no it's the pocket oh really battery gone gone so I borrowed uh a DJ ironically a pocket two which which was lent to me by another gentleman who was there on the trip and I filmed the finale on the osmo pocket 2 anyway about 4 5 hours later got back down to the vehicles after an incredible experience picked up the pocket three just to have another look at it and it worked it just began working it was inexplicable so this has happened twice where randomly you start it up and it kind of is half alive but just boogy and doesn't work because of that there is no possible way on this Earth that I would have this as my only camera now I said that I would not recommend buying one of these cameras it's so good it's so good and it's so bad that I would say by two of these cameras one as a backup because listen to me listen it will fail this will fail right guaranteed if you got two of them then you've got a backup and I believe that for the price point it's probably worth getting two of these you don't have to get two creative bundles you can just buy one creative bundle and then buy another camera by itself but if you do a lot of outdoor filming stuff that's critical that you can't re-shoot like I do then yeah you might want to get two of these you know if you're going on a once in a-lifetime trip um and something you know you're going to get those moments that are there and then gone and you want to capture those moments you're taking a big risk by only having this as your main camera but it is good enough to be your main camera there are so many benefits to this it's bloody brilliant it is almost the perfect vlogging camera it really is it just lets itself down on reliability [Music] [Applause] [Music] a

Channel: Thomas Heaton

Views: 277,234

Keywords: landscape photography, outdoor photography, landscape photography tutorial, landscape photography in the field, photography tips, best photo locations, how to landscape photography, hiking, outdoors, mitsubishi delica, photography road trip, road trip, dji pocket 3, pocket 3, dji osmo pocket 3

Id: yToLtjkhpOI

Length: 17min 38sec (1058 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 21 2024