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Let me preface this post with the fact that I have been working on a small documentary piece and was hired to shoot video, stills, as well as capturing audio (yes, that is unfortunate).

 

With our shoot requiring some international travel and thus a smaller footprint, I decided to leave behind our MOVi/C100 stabilization rig in favor of the much smaller DJI Osmo. Doing so allowed me to shoot with the Canon C300, but could also mix in a little stabilization when needed. 

 

My question going into the shoot was how practical would it be to do a walk and talk setup while still recording our subjects conversations? I knew that one of my shooting days would consist of me running up and down some unpaved roads and this, coupled with 90 degrees temperatures, wouldn’t allow me to shoot AND wear my SoundDevices 633 pack. So, I opted to risk it and leave my audio gear at the hotel for the day. 

 

In stepped the Osmo, paired with a set of Sennheiser lavs. With the attached RODE mic only picking up ambient audio, I broke out my lavs and connected via the 3.5mm mic jack. As a one man crew, this allowed me to shoot stabilized footage as well as picking up great sounding audio.

 

Obviously, this wouldn’t be an option for a commercial shoot, even a traditional doc shoot, but with limited space and limited resources, you can be sure that I will be using this same set up on my next small shoot. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I've been researching this camera. Seems like a great tool for a shooter or OMB. My friend in upstate NY is a OMB who loves his. One question, could you run a dual system sync test w your 633 and Osmo and see how it holds up? You know shoot out a card on something that would show sync. Thanks for your review.

 

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I am an Osmo owner and I have been doing testing for sound sync and quality.  The Osmo X3 camera does not hold sync to an external source.  It doesn't even hold sync to its internal source and it appears to drop samples as indicated by pops in the audio.  It may be a hardware issue or it might be able to be fixed by software.  Most people have internal audio about three frames ahead of picture and everything drifts over time.  Also, the video autorestarts at the end of the 4GB limit, but there is a gap in coverage.  

I recently did a shoot with the X5 camera that is compatible with the Osmo and the X5 holds sync for at least 4 minutes based on syncing with the longest clip I recorded.

The Osmo is a great tool, but it has serious limitations.  Oh, it also has a fan that gives a Red a run for it's money.

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I think the Osmo is a great tool, but I would suggest recording the audio externally and slating both the beginning and the end of the shot to check drift.  You can run audio from the recorder into the Osmo, but the Osmo track itself will still not be synced with the video so it isn't of much use.  Even with the audio problems, I don't think there is anything that currently competes with the Osmo for ease of use on stabilized tracking shots.

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Had a cameraman pull one of these out on a shoot the other day. I didn't look at it hard enough to realize it had a 3.5mm mic input. 

I had him shoot the timecode slate function on my Maxx. Footage looked like fun. Seemed like a situation where having a solid sound recording would prop up the workflow.

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Had a cameraman pull one of these out on a shoot the other day. I didn't look at it hard enough to realize it had a 3.5mm mic input. 

I had him shoot the timecode slate function on my Maxx. Footage looked like fun. Seemed like a situation where having a solid sound recording would prop up the workflow.

They were playing with one in our PO today and had the little mic plugged into the front. I haven't looked up the specs on the mic Minijack yet, but I think we would only be using it for b roll anyway.

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