I bought DJI’s previous Osmo Pocket 3, and I’ve used it extensively — from filming street photography photowalks around London to documenting my tour through the frozen Swedish Arctic. It’s been one of the best things I’ve bought for my YouTube channel, but DJI’s latest Pocket 4P takes that winning formula and supercharges it.
From its dual-camera design to its cutting-edge sensor tech and wider dynamic range, the Pocket 4P comes with a range of upgrades that make this the ultimate handheld gimbal camera for pro creators wanting to travel light. I’ve been using it for the past few weeks, and I’m really impressed at what it can do.
Starting at £529 in the UK, it’s not actually that much more expensive than the base Pocket 4 at £445 and the Osmo Pocket 3, which started at £519. But there’s a catch — a significant one for many of you.
Due to ongoing disputes with the US government, DJI’s newest products aren’t officially sold in the US, meaning you won’t be able to buy them directly from DJI or its usual retail partners. It’s not listed at all on either DJI’s official US store or places like B&H Photo. There’s a chance you’ll find it available from an importer or third-party resellers on Amazon — or if you’re traveling abroad — but you’ll be forgoing any kind of after-sales support, so you’ll be on your own if anything goes wrong.
“For DJI products with FCC authorization, DJI continues to offer support and service. We encourage US-based users to contact DJI Support directly about their claim(s),” a DJI spokesperson said in a statement to CNET. “However, we will not be able to provide support and service in the United States for products without FCC authorization. Currently, Osmo Pocket 4P is included in this latter group as the application for authorization remains pending.”
It’s a big blow for the creator community in the US, not to mention DJI itself, but if you really had your heart set on a new gimbal camera, then look instead toward Insta360’s Luna Ultra. It also has a second zoom lens along with rock-solid stabilization and wireless microphones. In fact, it’s so similar that DJI launched a lawsuit against Insta360. But the fact remains that while you can pick the Luna Ultra up easily in the US, DJI’s model simply isn’t for sale.
Here’s what I like about the Osmo Pocket 4P.
The Osmo 4P hasn’t physically changed all that much from either the base Pocket 4 or the Pocket 3 before it. It maintains the slender body with a joystick control and record button, along with the 2-inch display that rotates to turn the camera on and off and is touch-enabled for you to access settings. As the screen rotates, it reveals a zoom button and a custom button, which I have set to rotate the camera for my vlogging.
The big difference comes from the much larger camera unit sitting above, which now houses a second image sensor along with a telephoto lens in front of it. The result is a heftier-feeling piece of kit. It weighs more than the Pocket 4 or Pocket 3, although I still find it perfectly comfortable to hold up while I record.
While it has the same 1,545-milliampere-hour battery as the Pocket 4, I suspect that stabilizing the heavier camera unit takes its toll more. I found battery life to be a bit disappointing — it struggled to get through a full day of my use when out and about shooting photography vlogs in London. If you only shoot the odd clip here and there, then a full day should be fine, but if you plan to shoot numerous clips as you document your whole day out, then you’ll need to plan ahead.
My advice is to buy the battery grip. This used to come as standard in the Creator Combo but is now an optional extra. There are a variety of third-party ones you can find on Amazon, and it’s also backward compatible with battery grips built for the Pocket 3. It’ll add at least an extra couple of hours of use while also making the whole camera easier to hold.
The Osmo Pocket 4P now supports fast charging, and DJI says it’ll get from empty to 80% in about 18 minutes on a compatible 65-watt fast charger. I’d say that’s about right from my own testing and perfect for topping off when you pause for lunch. Along with a battery handle, I typically carry a battery bank that supports power delivery fast charging. When I wasn’t using the camera, I’d simply pop it on charge in my bag, and I didn’t need to worry about running out of juice halfway through the day.
In addition to the battery handle, the Osmo 4P is compatible with DJI’s existing accessories. That includes the excellent Mic Mini 3 and an optional clip-on fill light for low-light settings and nighttime vlogs.
The star of the show is the main camera, which packs a large 1-inch-type image sensor. More importantly, it also uses lateral overflow integration capacitor technology. That nonsense string of words essentially means that the sensor can capture more data for greater dynamic range.
LOFIC is new technology, and I’ve only just started seeing it used on top-end phone cameras, like Leica and Xiaomi’s Leitzphone. This is the first stand-alone camera I’ve seen it on, and DJI reckons you can achieve up to 17 stops of dynamic range. That’s a massive claim, putting the Pocket 4P essentially on par with the dynamic range you’d expect to see from high-end cinema cameras costing tens of thousands.
While I (sadly) can’t say exactly how the footage compares to, say, an Arri Alexa, I can say it looks superb. The dynamic range in the standard video mode is excellent, with natural-looking gradations between highlights and shadows. Footage is sharp, and the gimbal works well to keep things looking supersmooth and stable.
A handful of new color presets, designed to emulate filmic or cinematic styles, have been built in. They’re fun to play around with. (I particularly like the Warm Tone — at least once I’ve turned its intensity down a touch.) But if you really take your filming seriously, then you’ll want to switch to Pro mode.
Here you can take full manual control, including white balance and shutter speed, but you can also shoot using DJI’s new 10-bit D-Log2 profile. This creates a flat-looking, low-contrast look, but it gives you much more scope to add your own color back into the scene in postproduction (a process known in the industry as grading).
I love shooting this way as I want the flexibility to craft the look of my videos exactly as I want them. Shooting in D-Log2 is also how you’ll achieve the best dynamic range. The downside is that your files definitely will need editing after the fact. Those of you wanting to instantly share to your social channels will be better off sticking to the regular color modes.
The second lens is a 3x telephoto, essentially providing a 60mm focal length. It’s great for creating some natural-looking bokeh around your subject or simply to punch in further on distant details. While it doesn’t use the same LOFIC tech as the main camera, in good light, the footage looks crisp and is at least on par with what you’d expect from the telephoto lens on a high-end phone camera like the iPhone 17 Pro.
But there are some downsides I’ve found. For one, you can’t use D-Log2 with the telephoto lens, so if you want to incorporate tighter footage into your video project, then you’ll either need to color correct accurately to match the look of the two cameras or just shoot everything without using D-Log. Neither is an ideal solution.
The frame rate for D-Log2 footage also maxes out at 60 frames per second at 4K, which is a shame given that the camera can shoot at up to 240fps at 4K. Being able to shoot at 120fps is something of a standard for cinematic-looking footage, so I do think it’s a missed opportunity not to expand D-Log2’s functionality here, especially as the aforementioned iPhone 17 Pro can shoot ProRes Raw footage at up to 120fps (albeit with an external SSD) and ProRes Raw at 60fps from its telephoto lens.
I suspect (though DJI declined to comment when I asked) that D-Log2 could feasibly be activated for both the telephoto lens and for 120 fps shooting via a software update, as I don’t see why there’s a technical limitation here. I’ll keep my fingers crossed, but I also won’t hold my breath.
So to sum up, the base Osmo Pocket 4 doesn’t have the 4P’s secondary telephoto camera, nor does it use the new LOFIC image sensor. While I haven’t seen a vast difference in the quality of everyday scenes, DJI reckons the 4P has significantly improved dynamic range over its less expensive sibling.
The Osmo 4P maintains much of the same tracking skills seen on the base model and the previous Osmo 3. It’s incredibly easy to tap on a subject on the screen and have the camera keep that person locked in the frame. I sometimes use this when I’m presenting to the camera, but I also find that it’s a bit overzealous in its attempts to keep me centralized, resulting in quite jerky camera movements, which make the video look a little unprofessional.
If you want to be in the shot from further away, then you have two options. Like before, you can connect your phone to the camera using DJI’s Mimo app, which will give you a live view and full control over settings. I’ve used this many times, and it works seamlessly once you’ve set up the connection each time.
You can also grab a new accessory called the FrameTap that’s essentially the screen, joystick and record button packed into a small external unit that wirelessly connects to the Osmo. It basically allows you to control it wirelessly. While it’s a neat idea, I actually prefer Insta360’s strategy of allowing you to remove the entire front panel of the camera and use that as the remote.
With its superb image quality, rock-solid stabilization, solid tracking skills and fast charging, the Osmo Pocket 4P packs everything I need to be able to shoot my YouTube videos at the quality I’d hope for. It’s a superb all-rounder that gives a huge amount of flexibility for crafting pro-standard videos.
Its use of bleeding-edge LOFIC technology in its main image sensor is exciting to see, and it’s one of the main reasons — alongside the telephoto lens — to opt for the 4P over the base Osmo Pocket 4.
But the problem remains that many of you reading this won’t be able to buy the thing. If you can, then rest assured that you’re getting an extremely capable production camera that, for me, is the best tool for professional vlogging. Those in the US who can’t buy it should instead look toward the Insta360 Luna Ultra.