During a photo shoot last weekend I used my Osmo Pocket with my left hand while shooting with my DSLR with my right hand. Unfortunately I can't keep an eye on both at once and the Stills had priority as that was what I was invited to do.

However, this was an opportunity to test out a few things. The new firmware for the Osmo Pocket, My home built 'Clippy' stereo microphone with the DJI Osmo Pocket audio adapter now covered with a home made foam filter using just ordinary black spong foam cut up and hollowed out using a small pair of scissors and a Neweer Deat Cat furry wind muff during a slightly more than a light windy day. The video has no adjustments made to the sound from the clippy mic. All recorded frequencies are present. There is no added compression either beyond the OsmoPockets auto volume function.

I will say that due to me primerily taking stills (You may here my DSLR shutter in the background from time to time) that I was just roughly pointing the Pocket in the direction ahead of me and not paying a great deal of attention to it.

The result although not cinematicaly brilliant I am pleased with in several ways.

First, when the Osmo Pocket changed focus it was smooth and I couldn't detect any sign of focus pulsing.
When panning fast the Osmo Pocket didn't go out of focus as much as in the past.

That the Osmo Pocket did  great job on auto. The levels from quite loud to relatively soft are as I remember them The gain did not rise to make quieter passages as loud as the louder sections. That I find quite nice.

The Clippy mic capsules delivered good all round output level-wise and although are wired standard stereo still seem to give a mono sounding output.

Considering the wind, there is little wind noise and the foam/dead cat combination worked quite well but it was a noisy environment and I will test it out when there is wind and less background noise.
Last i'll apologise for the video quality which is down to me losing my export preferences for YouTube when I had to rebuild my PC last week.

Anyway, for better of worse here is the Royal Navy with the Royal Marines brass band before the start of the commissioning ceremony of the new naval vessel HMS Medway.

Hello and good day Ray-CubeAce. Thank you for sharing these information and this video with us today. Have a safe and a happy filming always.

We men can only do 1 thing simultaneously

Nicely done.  Have you considered a mount that would connect the DSLR and the osmo?

Great video, nicely done

Montfrooij Posted at 9-30 00:57
We men can only do 1 thing simultaneously

Not strictly true. Maybe can't do two thing well at once

A selection of stills taken at the same time as taking the video with my left hand.










Definitely not something to try all the time though.

DAFlys Posted at 9-30 04:30
Nicely done.  Have you considered a mount that would connect the DSLR and the osmo?

Not really. The shutter on my DSLR is quite loud.  You can still hear it going off in the video and they are a couple of feet apart. Mounting the two together might even pick up motor noise from my lenses on top of the shutter going off.
I don't burst shoot images and I can control focus, shutter speed, aperture, and shutter actuation with one hand.
  The difficult bit is keeping the DSLR steady against my eye to compose and think about where I'm pointing the pocket at the same time, plus I can't control the Pocket beyond pointing at that stage as I don't have time to look at the screen other than the occasional glance to keep an eye on the height of the framing.
It's not something I plan to do too much. It's just the job was taking stills but I wanted a video record of the event as well.

Ray-CubeAce Posted at 10-6 05:58
Not strictly true. Maybe can't do two thing well at once

A selection of stills taken at the same time as taking the video with my left hand.

I also speak from experience.
Last summer I tried operating my videocam (on a tripod)
Drone (in the sky)
And a DSLR for taking some stills (hanging on my neck).
That was hard and, even though I got most of the footage I wanted, it was far from ideal since I would have done better focusing on 1 task....
But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do ;)

Montfrooij Posted at 10-6 12:12
I also speak from experience.
Last summer I tried operating my videocam (on a tripod)
Drone (in the sky)

That does sound hard.  I assume the drone stays where it is when you don't use the controls?

I sometimes have three DSLRs around my neck at a time, mainly for lens choice, (14-24mm, 24-70mm, and 70-200mm) with a back pack on as well.
I have two DSLRs on Rapid Black straps to the sides and the third on a neck strap. All cameras have added battery packs attached and sometime flash units are attached as well.

With the addition of the backpack it's all too easy to strangle oneself changing over cameras

The weight is also crippling if you are shooting for more than eight hours.
Eating and other necessary bodily functions that need tending to also get very time consuming and awkward to sort out.
Even my Osmo Pocket basic kit is getting to be around a kilo in weight and clumsy to carry.
You have my sympathies.

Ray-CubeAce Posted at 10-6 13:09
That does sound hard.  I assume the drone stays where it is when you don't use the controls?

I sometimes have three DSLRs around my neck at a time, mainly for lens choice, (14-24mm, 24-70mm, and 70-200mm) with a back pack on as well.

Wow, that is a burden
But you at least get your desired focal length without having to swap lenses
I have moved to prime shooting a long time ago.
So I 'only' carry a body with a prime lens (the others are in the bag on the ground)
That must be lightweight compared to your situation

These occasions are when I'm shooting trains, so I know which focal length works (depending on the location, usually 35mm or 50mm) and I only need 1 (good) shot per train.

I tried to keep flying while operating the videocam, but that turned out to be impossible (smoothly).
But the videocam could be filming one position statically, so that was already running.
So I only need a very short period when I rotate the videocam to the second position (the other side).
But still it was hard to focus on the drone, videocam and DSLR and still make good decisions with your fingers.

I might get better over time

Montfrooij Posted at 10-6 21:43
Wow, that is a burden
But you at least get your desired focal length without having to swap lenses
I have moved to prime shooting a long time ago.

I have some prime lenses (35mm, 50mm and 70mm) but because I am mainly trying to work around crowds and jostling sometimes for a better position or running around the back of crowds to a new position, getting the correct focal length is easier with constant aperture f2.8 zoom lenses. Also the zoom lenses are weather sealed while the primes are not.

I am finding video is much trickier than I thought it would be. Much harder to get good constant framing positions if I haven't got special permissions  access. The Osmo Pocket is a godsend in that respect. Easy to get above crowd heads enough to make a difference.

Ray-CubeAce Posted at 10-6 23:13
I have some prime lenses (35mm, 50mm and 70mm) but because I am mainly trying to work around crowds and jostling sometimes for a better position or running around the back of crowds to a new position, getting the correct focal length is easier with constant aperture f2.8 zoom lenses. Also the zoom lenses are weather sealed while the primes are not.

I am finding video is much trickier than I thought it would be. Much harder to get good constant framing positions if I haven't got special permissions  access. The Osmo Pocket is a godsend in that respect. Easy to get above crowd heads enough to make a difference.

Yeah, I have to admit I sold all my zoom lenzes because I did not like the weight...
And since it is just hobby I can get away with missing some shots.
But the main reason I switched was because I like the different shooting method I have developed with primes.
I focus on my composition more before choosing the lens (because swapping takes time)
So I first envision the shot, choose the lens, look through the viewfinder, re compose, press the shutter.
Now this usually takes only a second or 2, because I only have 4 primes (20 f1.8 -  35 f1.8 -  50 f1.4 and 85 f1.8) so I usually can predict what lens I want on before the actual moment is there.
So in result, I get less images, but the ones I bring home have a higher 'keeper' rate.

For video I do have a videocamera with a zoom lens. But I agree that positioning is hard.
Especially since I have a big tripod that needs to be in place.
Except for when I'm flying a drone of course. Total freedom

Montfrooij Posted at 10-6 23:21
Yeah, I have to admit I sold all my zoom lenzes because I did not like the weight...
And since it is just hobby I can get away with missing some shots.
But the main reason I switched was because I like the different shooting method I have developed with primes.

Primes are certainly lighter and need less servicing.
If I weren't more often than not chasing an image or find myself in the wrong spot I would be using primes more. Event shooting seldom allows that and I prefer non posed shots. Some primes are sharper than C A zooms depending on the make and are definitely lighter but often not as robust. Some of mine have plastic mounts and my 50mm is woefully slow to focus by comparison. f1.4 is also an awfully narrow focus unless the lens is quite wide. Of course if you are on APS-C sized sensors it's a bit better and some of the bokeh can be excellent. The other thing is not having to worry to much about rain. I shot for three hours once in a storm at night. I couldn't actually see the subjects in the viewfinder but got some brilliant action shots.
However ,I do like primes a lot, they just aren't that practical for me most of the time.
Do you use a fluid head on your tripod?  I have two tripods and both are much too heavy to cart around all day and I need a really good reason to bring one with me. Too light and they vibrate in the wind. I did a night shoot on a bridge once and wondered why all my shots were blurred until I realised the bridge was oscillating with the passing traffic.
Still, you live and learn

Ray-CubeAce Posted at 10-7 06:15
Primes are certainly lighter and need less servicing.
If I weren't more often than not chasing an image or find myself in the wrong spot I would be using primes more. Event shooting seldom allows that and I prefer non posed shots. Some primes are sharper than C A zooms depending on the make and are definitely lighter but often not as robust. Some of mine have plastic mounts and my 50mm is woefully slow to focus by comparison. f1.4 is also an awfully narrow focus unless the lens is quite wide. Of course if you are on APS-C sized sensors it's a bit better and some of the bokeh can be excellent. The other thing is not having to worry to much about rain. I shot for three hours once in a storm at night. I couldn't actually see the subjects in the viewfinder but got some brilliant action shots.
However ,I do like primes a lot, they just aren't that practical for me most of the time.

Yeah, I totally get your point!
For me this is the best way to get low light + optical performance.
And not break my back

Yes, I have a fluid video head.
Must have for video
It is a tough thing to carry around, but once set up, it is perfect.
My latest purchase even has an adjustable centre column and allows for 'not level' positioning to be adjusted in seconds.
Super nice
(so I don't have to work the legs too much)

Well done, nice!

ssylca44 Posted at 10-7 10:09
Well done, nice!

Thank you.

As a side note to others that have been kind enough to view the video, this shoot is from one continuous recording (although edited after) and I did look of missing frames or missing audio at the 4gig limit where I joined the two clips, and I can report that apart from  the 4 frame audio sync issue I found no evidence of missing frames either of the audio or video footage.
I used M-PEG4 for recording and not mov.