This afternoon, DJI Innovations came out with a very interesting products for professional but also hobby photographers: The new hand-held video platform DJI OSMO. I will explain below why I see this as a groundbreaking moment in photography and filming even for amateur and travel photographers.

One of the sweetest pleasures after coming home from an inspiring vacation trip is to share the experiences with friends and family, or even the whole world. Many of us do this by using picture galleries, photo books, even printed photos and posters, and of course video. Because a moving picture says so much more than a still.

Now here’s the problem: Whenever we hobby filmmakers capture video, quality is usually low to very low. Those videos are taken mostly hand-held, either with an iPhone, GoPro or even a high quality SLR. But, they’re still handheld shots. And handheld shots are shaky. And shaky videos are a pain in the ass to watch.

Now, have you ever wondered what’s the main difference between a home video and a professional one, especially those fancy promotion videos or movies? Of course, image quality and focus play a role. But the main difference is that those professional shots are never shaky. They’re flowing easily just like the camera is an integral part of the scene, and not an outside object. This is easy to the eye and brain, and resembles the natural way our sensory system experiences the world.

The DJI OSMO is the first professional-grade but yet affordable system that puts even hobby filmmakers for the first time in the seat of a professional movie director, by delivering a handheld platform to stabilize a professional, DSLR-like camera that appears completely still, just like those steadycams in the movies. DJI uses in OSMO the same technology we already know from their Phantom drones, which is a 3-axis stabilization that takes away most of the shakiness. And now for the first time, DJI has put this into a small, affordable handheld device.

OSMO works also with the new DJI X5 camera, which offers cinematic image quality and a sensor larger than full frame, giving exceptional depth of color and vibrance even in low-light situations.

The combination of DJI X3 and OSMO will sell for US$ 749 and is available October 2015.

I can’t wait to get my hands on one of those.