Stops: Pocket Assistant

The DJI Osmo Pocket 4P has a fixed aperture. f/2.0 on the wide, f/1.8 on the tele, and no way to stop down. So if you want a 180 degree shutter for natural motion, neutral density is the only lever left. Too little and you break the shutter angle. Too much and you are pushing ISO further than the sensor wants to go. Stops works out how much density the light in front of you actually needs, and which filter in your bag gets you there. THE METER Point the phone at the scene. Stops reads the light through the camera, converts it to an exposure value, and tells you the filter to fit and the ISO that covers whatever that filter overshoots by. Tap Hold to freeze a reading, so you can lower the phone and still read the answer. Nothing is recorded. The camera is a light meter here and nothing else. BUILT ROUND THE POCKET 4P Stops knows what the camera is: f/2.0 and base ISO 100 on the wide, f/1.8 and base ISO 50 on the tele. Choose the lens and the frame rate, and the shutter and the arithmetic follow from there. Switching to 50p costs a stop of light, and Stops accounts for it without being asked. A calibration trim squares the iPhone's meter against the Pocket. Set it once, in the field, against a scene you have metered on both, and the two agree from then on. YOUR BAG, NOT A CATALOGUE Tick off the filters you own and every recommendation stays inside them. When nothing you own is dense enough, Stops says so plainly rather than suggesting something you would have to go and buy. When a polariser wins, it names the plain alternative too. A polariser changes the picture as well as the exposure, so fitting one should be your decision rather than a rounding artefact. LIGHT YOU HAVE NOT REACHED YET The card works out where the sun is from your position and the time of day, checks the cloud overhead, and estimates the light for where you are standing. That is the number you want on the way somewhere, when there is nothing in front of the lens to measure. It is an estimate, and the app labels it as one. Once you arrive, the meter reads the real thing and is always the better answer. FIELD NOTES The settings worth fixing once per location. How to save them as a custom mode. What a polariser does when you turn, and why you should not pan across open sky with one fitted. How to balance D-Log 2 footage once you are back at the edit. The section about where you are standing is written on your iPhone, for that place, using Apple Intelligence. It never sees the internet. PRIVACY No account, no analytics, no advertising and no tracking. Every recommendation is computed on the phone. One thing leaves the device: your coordinate, sent to Apple's weather service to fetch cloud cover, and only when you use the estimate on the card. Stops is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by DJI. DJI and Osmo are trademarks of their respective owners.