DJI Osmo Pocket 1
Last night I used my DJI Osmo Pocket 1 and my DJI Osmo Action 3 to make time lapse videos of the Christmas lights down below in Frisco Square. I shot them both just outside my living room window. I did this a few years ago, also with the DJI Pocket. Seemed like a good time to do another, this time I decided to make two. One with each camera and see which I prefer.
With the DJI Pocket I made a motion time laps, or motion lapse. The DJI Pocket is a small camera with a built in gimbal. It uses technology from DJI’s drones. One benefit of the camera mounted on a gimbal is that it allows the camera to move, and in this case move in a pre-programed way.
DJI Osmo Action 3
The other time lapse was made with the DJI Action 3. It’s a standard time lapse. It’s advantage is that it has a slightly wider angle view, but the camera isn’t able to move.
This DJI Pocket time lapse was filmed over 3 hours. The resulting video was three minutes. I sped up parts of that video in post to bring the run time down to just one minute. Then added music and titles.
The DJI Action was a 30 minute record time with a resulting two minute video that I sped up to twice speed (2x) to also reduce to one minute in post. I had to do it twice. The first video was too bright, so I changed the exposure compensation down by one stop. I tried again.
Both videos give the viewer an idea of what it’s like to see the light show, although it is hindered some by being filmed from just outside my living room window. I may next try and film a time lapse of the light show from ground level. The trick of course is not having the camera knocked over by a careless pedestrian distracted by those very same lights.
There are benefits to both cameras for doing time lapse photography. The DJI Pocket has that amazing gimbal so motion lapse is always a great option as it adds an additional layer of activity to the video. The downside of the DJI Pocket and the DJI Pocket 2, they are limited to 1080p for time lapses. The DJI Action 3 can’t move on its own; but it’s a newer camera and has the ability to shoot time lapses at 4K resolution.
Which do I prefer? I think subject matter is key, if the subject has lots of motion adding in additional motion isn’t as necessary to keep the video interesting. That being said, having the ability to add panning to the time laps does add more dimension to the video.
In the end the cameras are built for different purposes, but share functionality. I wouldn’t buy either of these cameras for time lapse, motion lapse or hyper lapse features alone; but when you already have them they are worth using to see what creative ways you can put them to use. Even if it just a Christmas Light show.
Both videos were edited in LightCut on my iPhone.
Shot on DJI Pocket 1 - 3 Hours reduced to 1 minute
Shot on DJI Osmo Action 3 - 30 minutes reduced to 1 minute.