Pocket 2 Anamorphic & Wide Angle WITH ND Filters

Freewell has just released a few new lenses and filters for the DJI Pocket 2. The two were going to be taking a look at today are the Anamorphic lens and the wide-angle lens. These lenses can be purchased together as part of a kit, or individually if you only need one or the other. We'll find out if these lenses are for you, and if picking one or both of them up would make sense for you.

Freewell reached out to me and asked if I'd like to review a few of their Pocket 2 lenses and filters. I've used Freewell filters on some of my other cameras and drones, but these filters have a new feature that I was looking forward to using and hope to see them included in their other filters in the future. Spoiler alert, it's swappable ND filters - but more on that later. As always, these words are completely my own, Freewell has not told me to say, or not say anything in particular and they're not seeing this video before I post it.

Getting straight into the most important part of these filters, the price. The Anamorphic lens on its own is $59.99 USD and the wide-angle lens is also $59.99 USD. These two lenses are part of a kit however, they cost $99.99 USD. That is quite a lot of money, so let's dive into some comparisons and specs to see if these are right for you.

A quick price comparison to other Pocket 2 lenses, Ulanzi sells a 1.33 times anamorphic lens for $40, I have not used this particular lens but if it's like the drone 1.33 anamorphic lenses it's a very stylized and aggressive filter, that gives you a softer image, aggressive flares, and can't be used with ND filters. I made a video about this lens for Mavic drones.

Another comparison is the Freewell Osmo Pocket 1 lens, which sells for $30 - but isn't compatible with the Pocket 2 and also doesn't have ND filters.

Purchasing the DJI Wide angle lens separately from the creator kit will cost you $49, and it's a great lens - but lacks any kind of ND filter compatibility. But also is included in the creator kit, so you may have this lens already.

The anamorphic lens is pretty unique on its own, but if you have a drone with an anamorphic lens - you can use this lens to match your anamorphic drone footage. If you've stuck around my channel for any length of time, you know I have a soft spot in my heart for anamorphic video - but typically on smaller cameras, if the lens has too aggressive of a wide-angle stretch, the lens can distort your image and result in your footage looking soft. This Anamorphic lens has a de-squeeze factor of 1.15 times, which is noticeable when you're watching your edited footage back - but it's not overbearing and doesn't lose much quality while giving you the anamorphic look.

Freewell Pocket 2 Anamorphic Lens Review

One of my favorite parts of Anamorphic footage is the blue flares you'll get from pointing the lens directly at a light source. The flares on this lens are apparent, but they are well controlled for such a small lens. Other smaller anamorphic lenses I've tested result in a more "smearing" look, and the flares would be fuzzy or sloppy - but the flares here are well maintained and pretty level. They tend to curve around the edges of the screen if you get the light source at certain angles, but that's pretty picky for an anamorphic lens of this size. True anamorphic lenses are hundreds or thousands of dollars, so comparing them isn't totally fair, but at the same time - this is the most expensive anamorphic lens for the Pocket 2, so I think it's okay to be a little critical here.

The aspect ratio is another reason I love anamorphic footage - the footage will look distorted while you're filming it, but after you process it with your editing software, the footage will look more natural at the correct aspect ratio. The 1.15 de-squeeze isn't as aggressive as traditional anamorphic lenses that are 1.33 or 1.8, but since this is a lens that attaches to your lens - having too aggressive of a squeeze would make your footage very soft and distorted. I don't mind the minimal squeeze if it means the image won't be distorted. For a comparison of 1.33 vs 1.15, check out my Freewell and Ulanzi anamorphic videos for the Mavic Air 2, which you can see here.

Freewell Pocket 2 Wide-angle Lens Review

Moving on to the wide-angle lens, my first thought was "there is a wide-angle included in the creator kit, so why would you need another lens?" The neat part about both the wide-angle and the anamorphic lens is that you can attach the included ND filters to the back of the lens so you can bring down the overall exposure of your shots without adjusting your camera settings. These are the only lenses for the Pocket 2 that use this concept of ND filters. There are 4 included ND filters in this pack, an ND8, 16, 32, and 64, and again, they can be used with both the anamorphic and wide-angle lenses. This is great if you're shooting with the 180-degree shutter rule, to achieve natural-looking motion blur in your shots.

For a quick comparison in these DJI and Freewell wide-angle lenses, the Freewell lens appears to be slightly wider than the 20mm DJI wide-angle lens - but the image is also slightly softer around the corners of the frame when compared to the DJI lens. The image is still usable but is slightly softer since it's making the field of view wider than the DJI lens. If you have straight lines at the edges of the frame, you'll notice that the edges of the frame distort those straight lines as well. It seems like where it's wider than the DJI lens, there is the most distortion. However, the ability to use the ND filters with the Freewell lens is enough for me to overlook the slightly softer image and distortion - but that's something you'll have to decide for yourself.

To attach the ND filters to the lenses, you'll have to take the lens off of your camera and carefully place one of the included ND filters onto the back of your lens. A cool part of these filters is that they're magnetic, so there is no snapping or screwing the filters on - they magnetically snap into place. One thing you really have to be careful of though is that you don't smudge the lenses while you're handling them. There are magnetic tabs that I've been using to hold the filters and sometimes if I'm going quickly I can smudge the sides of the filter. You also have to be careful to not smudge the inside of the lenses, but that's more difficult since you're not really touching the front or back of the lens while holding them. This is just part of using a small camera though. Small cameras are going to have small lenses, and if you're familiar with ND filters for drones, for example - you're already used to this. Just something to be aware of.

Both Recognized by the Pocket 2

Another nice feature of these lenses is that they're both recognized by the Pocket 2 and will show an alert when connected to the camera. This is nice because when you turn the camera on or off, typically the lens rotates into the gimbal. If the camera doesn't know about the lens, the camera will knock the lens off of the front and possibly damage the camera's glass. Since the camera recognizes these lenses, the camera stays pointed out so you can easily remove the lens. And the best part is that after removing the lens, the camera will turn around to its normal position to protect the lens. This is how the DJI wide-angle lens works, but happy to see that functionality in the Freewell lenses as well.

Conclusion

While these lenses are expensive, I have a feeling they are this price because of the ability to use them with the 4 included filters. I think the inclusion of the ND filters makes these much more versatile to use in all lighting conditions. If you wanted to use a wide-angle or anamorphic lens before, you'd have to do so in certain lighting conditions, or not adhere to the 180-degree shutter rule and crank your shutter speed to achieve the proper exposure. There were trade-offs at each part of the lenses previously, and with these filters, those sacrificed are eliminated.. but you have to pay for those features.

These lenses and filters are high quality, as they should be for this price point. If you couldn't tell, I love the fact that you can attach ND filters to these and I can't wait for more lenses to have this functionality in the future.

To push this idea further, it would be interesting if the ND filters could be used on their own, so maybe the All Day ND filter pack would work with these filters, so you wouldn't have to have a separate filter pack. Filter stacking would be an interesting concept and could allow for more creative lenses to be used with ND filters, or use the ND filters on their own if you don't want to use the other lenses.

If you're looking to film Anamorphic or wide-angle footage with your DJI Pocket 2, it's worth checking out the Freewell ND Anamorphic and wide-angle lenses.