Former DJI engineer makes super zoom camera: 50x, AI tracks, identifies more than 300 species of birds
A group of former DJI engineers just introduced the FarseerTech RocXZoom – what they call “the world's first robotic, ultra-telephoto zoom camera”. The camera combines the ability to zoom far, gimbal, tracking and subject recognition AI, to solve the problem for bird photographers: when holding a long telephoto shot, it shakes, when shooting at high speed, you have to increase the ISO, when setting up a tripod is slow, making it easy to miss the moment. RocXZoom is raising capital on Kickstarter. The campaign exceeded the initial goal quite far: more than 25 times the amount raised, about 250,000 USD with more than 350 backers (according to PetaPixel at the time of posting). The campaign will be open until September 28, 2026. If you are interested, you can view and order.
Far zoom, small body, AI bird recognition
The device has a converted focal length of about 40–2000mm: providing 20x optical zoom, hybrid plus digital zoom up to 50X. The AI on the machine recognizes more than 300 species of birds, in addition to people and objects. Dual image stabilization: built-in gimbal + electronic image stabilization (EIS).
Trade off image quality? Of course
To get fast speed, lots of tracking, fast, compact body, super zoom, the trade-off is image quality and sensor size. The device is equipped with a sensor with a modest size of only 1/2.5" with a small aperture that changes from F1.8 to F3.9 depending on focal length. When shooting at a focal length of 2000mm (converted) and a 1/2.5" sensor, it is a huge challenge in terms of image quality. Therefore, images at this focal length will have very deep processing intervention, including AI.
Kickstarter price and risks
If you register to buy the device early, you will have a preferential price of 449-499 USD for the regular version, the larger Pro Kit gimbal version costs 849-949 USD.
Conclude
In short, RocXZoom is quite interesting, holding the 2000mm in the hand is very strange, can take a lot of photos, is simpler, can wade through more mud because the device is smaller. But in return, the image quality will not be as good as the big machines. In my opinion, this camera is more suitable for chill-out photography, or recording photography (the type of shooting with photos of strange species, rare birds first, taking pictures first) rather than taking photos of beautiful angle works, beautiful birds, moments, beautiful poses... What do you think about this device? Do you intend to buy soon? Tell me more in the comments section below.