DJI announces a new Osmo with a zoom lens

DJI announces a new Osmo with a zoom lens ,

DJI

DJI has just announced an update to the Osmo, the handheld version of the stabilizing gimbal and camera that the company uses on its drones. It’s called the Osmo+, and it comes with a new camera that allows for 3.5x optical zoom and up to 7x digital zoom. The new Osmo is on sale starting today for $649.

The Osmo+ uses the Zenmuse X3 Zoom camera, a version of the Zenmuse Z3 aerial camera the company announced back in July. It has the same 12.4-megapixel, 1/2.3-inch Sony Exmor R CMOS sensor as the camera on the original Osmo, and it still can shoot in 4K. The main difference is the optical zooming capability — 3.5x isn’t a lot of zoom, but it’s better than being stuck at one focal length the entire time you’re shooting. In turn, the Osmo+ has a variable aperture, which remains at f2.8 at the widest angles, but stops down to f5.2 when zoomed in.

And a bigger battery, too

DJI has also bumped up the battery capacity on the Osmo+. The new model has a 1,225mAh battery — a welcome step up from the 980mAh version found on the original Osmo. A more curious difference, though, is that the highest frame rate the Osmo+ can shoot is 100 frames per second, according to DJI’s official spec sheet. That’s 20 fewer than the first Osmo.

Lastly, DJI is touting a new "motion timelapse" feature on the Osmo+. This allows users to set the camera in one spot and draw out a path for the camera to trace over a specific amount of time. The resulting effect is pretty cool: