• Price: £329

Why we chose the DJI Pocket Osmo Action camera: The smaller the lens, the more nimble the gimble

Back in the day, the art of making movies was for Hollywood studios and Hollywood studios only. It was a business consisting of big finance fat cats, actors called Humphrey, and cameras the size of Moldova. It was, in short, a different time. Then the cameras got more affordable, more portable, and usability improved to the point where even rank amateurs could produce deep fried slices of cinematic gold without any film school training whatsoever. All of which leads us on to the DJI Osmo Pocket – your one way ticket to shooting the season’s hottest shred edit.

“Because life is big,” reads the official tagline on the DJI website; right next to a photo of the smallest 3-axis stabilised handheld camera they’ve ever designed (irony much). Despite this thing’s tiny stature though, the Osmo Pocket really does pack a hefty punch.

“You’ll be able to unleash your inner creativity here in ways you can only dream of on your smartphone”

Whether or not you’re the next Jerome Tanon / Christopher Nolan, all rolled into one (Jerstopher Tolan?), you’ll be chuffed to discover this product serves up a whole bunch of properly intelligent features. Intelligent features like ActiveTrack, Motionlapse, and 3×3 Panorama. You’ll be able to unleash your inner creativity here in ways you can only dream of on your smartphone.

There is, of course, another reason that this is a better option than your iPhone / Galaxy / Pixel. Yes, that’s right, hold onto your hats. We’re building up to a brief discussion of gimbal stabilization. Despite what smartphone makers and GoPro suits will tell you about electronic stabilization and optical image stabilization, for genuinely cinematic-style flow those two ways of doing things will never compare to the silky, silky, smoothness of a mechanical gimbal.

That’s not to say going out with a GoPro and your phone doesn’t have its merits, it’s just that the Osmo Pocket will make your footage look that bit more crisp when you’re bombing along at speed. Big up that gimbal. Big up smoothness. Big up yourself DJI.

“The smallest 3-axis stabilised handheld camera they’ve ever designed”

Another thing worth shouting about / whispering about here is the noiseless cooling system. Delivering dead mouse quiet performance, the Osmo Pocket makes the most of a fanless, passive, cooling solution that dissipates heat evenly.

The single-handed design here obviously has its merits if you’re trying to stay close to the rider in front, while they pull banging trick after banging trick, a la Gimbal God. It’ll allow you to get that hand in where you need it to be without compromising your balance (especially useful if you’ve picked up a head of steam, and don’t fancy face-planting prematurely).

Those of you who aren’t out and out camera nerds should briefly look away at this point. The Osmo Pocket has a 1 / 2.3 sensor, 80° FOV, and f / 2.0 aperture. It can also shoot 4K / 60fps video at 100 Mbps, slow motion video at 1080p / 120fps 4x, and photos at 12MP with a pixel size of 1.55 μm. It’s also got a super handy universal port.