Is the Osmo Pocket 3 worth the Hype?

If you are reading my blog, and looking at the Pocket 3 there is a pretty good chance you have seen the Pocket 3 being used for roller. At least on my feed that's where most of the hype is so that's what I am primarily going to focus on. As soon as I got my camera, I called my buddy and told him to meet me with his bike and we started shooting!

The Pros.

 It was easy, I mean EASY. Throw a single 4.5” suction cup on the car, thread on the camera, and roll. It took all of 5 minutes and we were on the road. The active tracking was not perfect but again, it was easy and it did work most of the time. The footage was not great, but it was more than good enough for social media and maybe even some YouTube. and editing was a breeze, I added a 25% warp stabilizer on Premiere Pro to smooth out a bit of shake, I used auto color so no color grading, no other editing, and I had usable social media footage. Oh, and I had a ton of fun doing it. I wasn’t stressed cause I had thousands of dollars hanging off the back of my truck. I didn’t have to hang myself off the back of my truck either so I didn’t need an extra person to drive me around.

The Cons.

First off, the framing was a little tricky. Fixed focal length of roughly 20mm means you are dependent on moving the car to get good framing which isn’t as easy on some roads. Second, exposure. The fixed f2 aperture means you are reliant on ISO and ND filters to adjust exposure. Any changing light can heavily affect your footage either with noise or just a bad exposure. The fixed f2 aperture also leads to a very narrow depth of field, this can be nice or not so nice depending on your use. Third, the autofocus. While decent, it sometimes struggled to keep up especially in changing light. Lastly, vibration and shake. The idea of this camera is to be cheap and easy, and unfortunately there is a reason why vehicle rigs cost so much. With a perfect road you can manage quite well, but not perfect and you will see very quickly what you are missing. This is not necessarily a Pocket 3 flaw, just part of rollers you need to consider when weighing your options. There are some cool products coming out that I have yet to try so cannot yet comment on them, but items like the MovMax blade arm could make a huge difference. Until then, smooth roads are critical.

Verdict on rollers. 

The Pocket 3 is an easy, fast, and cheap(relatively) way to get rollers without either owning or risking expensive camera gear. For social media content creators it’s the simplest way to jump into rollers, but you will likely encounter yourself being held back by the camera after the initial excitement wears off. With a perfect road, and perfect light you can no doubt make some phenomenal footage. How often do you have that though? If your goal is to make high quality rollers and cater to clients in varying situations, the Pocket 3 is going to be a little harder to work with. Rollers for your friend on the way to or from the parking lot meet? Pocket 3 should do fine.

At the end of the day the Pocket 3 has opened the door to good quality rollers to people who previously did not have the means, you just have to understand the limitations and may need to get a little more creative to stand out. This won't replace a full frame camera on a vehicle rig, but it's shockingly close. With a shock absorbing arm, it might just be even closer.