DJI OSMO ZENMUSE X5R Olympus 12mm 4K Test Footage - Virtual Hike in La Jolla, California
Always in search of the highest quality camera equipment to upgrade to, I was very excited to finally get out and test my new DJI Zenmuse X5R - the world's smallest yet highest quality uncompressed micro 4/3 video camera system, including the Inspire1 drone, Osmo gimbal, and the Olympus 12mm f/2 lens. WHile I haven't yet gotten the Inspire1 in the sky, I did get a chance to try the Osmo handheld gimbal, and here is what I came back with. NOTES ABOUT THE ACTUAL DEMO FOOTAGE & MY REVIEW THUS FAR: This was a 20 minute window I had to try and shoot some footage and so without ever previously using anything like it, I parked my car along the beach in La Jolla, hooked up the X5R to the Osmo, turned on my phone with the DJI Go App, and did a quick walk down a coastal lookout on back. I PURPOSELY shot in a very high contrast situation - facing the hot mid-day sun and ocean - which all things considered I think the camera did pretty well in. You'll note that at times the footage is jumpy; for this I have two explanations: 1) Using the joystick control on the Osmo Gimbal is WAY TOO SENSITIVE and so smooth pans and tilts using it are impossible, as you can likely tell from the video. Let's hope there is a software update to adjust this from DJI. 2) At :35 you'll see the camera lose focus for a moment. Focusing in general is very difficult using the DJI GO app and so I recommend anyone using this for professional productions to purchase the DJI FOCUS accessory. I do have one ordered but did not have it installed at this time. 3) At :39, 1:04, and 2:08 there is what appears to be a jump in the video. I do not know what caused this but I do know that where I was walking was very unstable. I am thinking it MAY be related to controlling the camera movement with the DJI go app (tap and hold then move). Perhaps there is an issue with the firmware that causes a jump when it is first pressed? At this point it is too early to tell but I would appreciate any feedback / comments if you have one and have noticed the same issue! NOTES ON QUALITY / BUILD / FIRST IMPRESSION OF THE X5R + OSMO SYSTEM: Overall, while it seems fairly well built, it is VERY clear that one drop of this thing on the hard ground or one spash of water and it will be GAME OVER - it looks like the most fragile piece of equipment I have ever filmed on! To make things worse, there is no case available at the moment that holds the X5R to the hold it readily attached to the device, so setup time is painfully slow and not adviseable in extreme weather situations (blowing sand, any sort of precipitation, etc). AUDIO / FAN NOISE on the attached SSD on the X5R is so loud and disturbing, that I just called B&H and requested a replacement one. It wasn't a nice, continous sound, but sounded like....I am at a loss for words here....a chincy piece of shit? It was not a nice continous fan noise as you hear on a computer or hard drive but it was a ultra high pitched and ridiculously loud tone with what sounded like some crunching in it? The funny thing is that DJI includes a microphone with this, as if they think there is any way you can get audio while filming. (On the X5 and X3 the fan shuts off during filming, but apparently that isn' possible for the X5R). In this case, I filmed the audio separately on my trusty, solidly built Canon 1-DC. POST PRODUCTION WORKFLOW Frustrating beyond belief, but I was finally able to get something to work. The issue I had (and still have) is that the X5R doesn't just spit out the files onto the SSD for export/import, but rather they make you do it through the CineLight software. For me, all of the videos I shot looked fine as a proxy file on my iPhone, but when viewed on my computer(s) in Cinelight, they appeared to be only showing the purples / whites, making for a disturbing first impression. After searching forums I had determined that I needed to reformat the drive and microSD card - which I did, to no avail. The only thing that resulted was I deleted a whole set of beautiful sunset test footage because I thought it all was bad! I went so far as to try to export the video to a Pro Res 422 using Cinelight but it still showed up as purple. It was only after exporting as an DNG sequence, then importing to Davinchi Resolve, was I able to view the video with normal colors and export a working Pro-Res 422 (I wasn't able to use Resolve's color correction features such as shadows /highlights / saturation for some reason? - Perhaps because they don't allow it in their free version?) At any rate, I am familiar with color correcting in Adobe Premiere Pro so adjusted the curves in Resolve and then exported the files as a ProRes422 which I then imported in CC and applied the basic color edits I normally do (shadow highlight, contrast, saturation). Overall I am not thrilled with the color, but not terribly dissapointed with it.
Always in search of the highest quality camera equipment to upgrade to, I was very excited to finally get out and test my new DJI Zenmuse X5R - the world's smallest yet highest quality uncompressed micro 4/3 video camera system, including the Inspire1 drone, Osmo gimbal, and the Olympus 12mm f/2 lens. WHile I haven't yet gotten the Inspire1 in the sky, I did get a chance to try the Osmo handheld gimbal, and here is what I came back with. NOTES ABOUT THE ACTUAL DEMO FOOTAGE & MY REVIEW THUS FAR: This was a 20 minute window I had to try and shoot some footage and so without ever previously using anything like it, I parked my car along the beach in La Jolla, hooked up the X5R to the Osmo, turned on my phone with the DJI Go App, and did a quick walk down a coastal lookout on back. I PURPOSELY shot in a very high contrast situation - facing the hot mid-day sun and ocean - which all things considered I think the camera did pretty well in. You'll note that at times the footage is jumpy; for this I have two explanations: 1) Using the joystick control on the Osmo Gimbal is WAY TOO SENSITIVE and so smooth pans and tilts using it are impossible, as you can likely tell from the video. Let's hope there is a software update to adjust this from DJI. 2) At :35 you'll see the camera lose focus for a moment. Focusing in general is very difficult using the DJI GO app and so I recommend anyone using this for professional productions to purchase the DJI FOCUS accessory. I do have one ordered but did not have it installed at this time. 3) At :39, 1:04, and 2:08 there is what appears to be a jump in the video. I do not know what caused this but I do know that where I was walking was very unstable. I am thinking it MAY be related to controlling the camera movement with the DJI go app (tap and hold then move). Perhaps there is an issue with the firmware that causes a jump when it is first pressed? At this point it is too early to tell but I would appreciate any feedback / comments if you have one and have noticed the same issue! NOTES ON QUALITY / BUILD / FIRST IMPRESSION OF THE X5R + OSMO SYSTEM: Overall, while it seems fairly well built, it is VERY clear that one drop of this thing on the hard ground or one spash of water and it will be GAME OVER - it looks like the most fragile piece of equipment I have ever filmed on! To make things worse, there is no case available at the moment that holds the X5R to the hold it readily attached to the device, so setup time is painfully slow and not adviseable in extreme weather situations (blowing sand, any sort of precipitation, etc). AUDIO / FAN NOISE on the attached SSD on the X5R is so loud and disturbing, that I just called B&H and requested a replacement one. It wasn't a nice, continous sound, but sounded like....I am at a loss for words here....a chincy piece of shit? It was not a nice continous fan noise as you hear on a computer or hard drive but it was a ultra high pitched and ridiculously loud tone with what sounded like some crunching in it? The funny thing is that DJI includes a microphone with this, as if they think there is any way you can get audio while filming. (On the X5 and X3 the fan shuts off during filming, but apparently that isn' possible for the X5R). In this case, I filmed the audio separately on my trusty, solidly built Canon 1-DC. POST PRODUCTION WORKFLOW Frustrating beyond belief, but I was finally able to get something to work. The issue I had (and still have) is that the X5R doesn't just spit out the files onto the SSD for export/import, but rather they make you do it through the CineLight software. For me, all of the videos I shot looked fine as a proxy file on my iPhone, but when viewed on my computer(s) in Cinelight, they appeared to be only showing the purples / whites, making for a disturbing first impression. After searching forums I had determined that I needed to reformat the drive and microSD card - which I did, to no avail. The only thing that resulted was I deleted a whole set of beautiful sunset test footage because I thought it all was bad! I went so far as to try to export the video to a Pro Res 422 using Cinelight but it still showed up as purple. It was only after exporting as an DNG sequence, then importing to Davinchi Resolve, was I able to view the video with normal colors and export a working Pro-Res 422 (I wasn't able to use Resolve's color correction features such as shadows /highlights / saturation for some reason? - Perhaps because they don't allow it in their free version?) At any rate, I am familiar with color correcting in Adobe Premiere Pro so adjusted the curves in Resolve and then exported the files as a ProRes422 which I then imported in CC and applied the basic color edits I normally do (shadow highlight, contrast, saturation). Overall I am not thrilled with the color, but not terribly dissapointed with it.