The best action camera carry case for a DJI Osmo

We’ve been using a DJI Osmo Pocket v1 for a while now. Because Jonathan’s phone seldom stops ringing, it’s not ideal for filming with. So this great little device is a really neat way of overcoming those issues. It’s a small action camera that’s compact enough to be portable. But since we’ve bought a few additional accessories to use with it, the original action camera carry case we had doesn’t really suit us any more. So, it’s time for an upgrade.

What is a DJI Osmo camera?

It’s a pocket recording device which records in 4k. It can attach to your Iphone. It’s got a small gyro in the head which means it can swivel and remain stable. It comes in a sheath-type cover to protect it, and we’ve found it really good value for what it does.

What accessories can you get?

To go with our DJI Osmo we’ve got:

• An extension arm. You place the DJI Osmo on the extended end. Then your phone can go near the base in the fold-out screen holder. This is great if you need a shot from higher up or if you wanted to work in selfie mode.
• The pocket charging case. This is a really great quality bit of kit with a lovely close feature on it.
• A clamp. This goes round the body of the camera so you can attach it to anything
• An audio adapter. This plugs into the USB-c and from there you can run a Lav Mic from it.
• The scroll wheel. This slides on and allows movement of the camera head.
• A wireless connector. This is so you can wirelessly connect it to your phone rather than using the adpater.
• A cloth for cleaning
• A charging plug
• A wide lens – a magnetic lens cap for wider shots

About the DJI Osmo action carry case itself

Our particular case is made by Surewo. It was about £20 from Amazon, but there are lots of other makes out there depending on your budget.

As you can see it’s pretty tiny. The ultimate in compact storage, coming in at around 2.5″ x 10.5″ # 8″ only. Can literally fit in your pocket when you’re on the move.

This one has a water- and shock-resistant shell, zips to close and has a handy zipped pocket in the lid. It comes with what they class as a “sponge”. It’s essentially a foam insert pre-cut to what accessories you might want to store in there.

It didn’t quite work for our purposes though. We have more kit that we want to put in there. Also we don’t necessarily want to use it to store all their suggested items.

For example, we’ve decided to keep the larger pocket charging case out as this can be used on it’s own as a stand-alone item. Here we didn’t see the benefit of storing a case within a case, so we’ll keep this separately.

The action camera carry case upgrade

In this case, making the Shadow Foam insert custom sized to go into the case was made really easy. We simply removed the “sponge” insert that was in there and used it as a template to cut around.

This gave us the perfect sized insert to go in the case, with just a little added customisation. As there is a slight bevel or radius on the inside of the case where the sides meet the base, we just needed to create the same on the foam insert. That was done by using the scalpel that comes in our cutting kits. With it, we gently shaved off the bottom edge of the foam. Then we have the perfect fit.

If you don’t have the template to cut around like we did, you could check out this guide to making a custom fit insert for pretty much any case.

For this insert we used our red Shadow Foam. It comes in 3 depths including 70mm and 50mm, but we went for the 30mm deep given the small case we were fitting it into. If you’re unsure about what colour or depth of foam you need for your project, then it’s well worth checking out our Guide to ShadowFoaming or any number of videos on our YouTube channel where you can find help and advice just like this.

You will also find lots of guidance there on our recommended ways of cutting and peeling the foam to get the best results for your project. Especially if it’s your first time using Shadow Foam we’d really recommend you checking those out.

The finished result

We’re really pleased with the compact action camera carry case we made for our DJI Osmo set up. With some tweaking of the layout it’s meant that we have been able to include everything we wanted in the layout. We now have the perfect pocket-sized filming companion to take out and about when we might need to do some filming.

If your camera rig is bigger than this, then it may also be worth checking out some of the other photography solutions that we, and our customers, have created. Most recently we made a massive portable case with in-built charging station for our bigger Lumix cameras, and a separate audio backpack. But if small rigs are your thing, hopefully you’ve enjoyed this tiny project.