Summary
I recently attempted to hike the length of Hadrian’s Wall. I say attempted because I only managed to get two thirds of the way across the width of England before throwing in the towel. However, I’m still proud of my achievement because, with no training and an evening of Googling our intended campsites the only preparation, I saw the best of the Roman architecture and got home in time for the weekend.
To document my journey, I took two cameras. I also had two phones, as tents don’t have power outlets, but the idea was to solely use these for emergency navigation and the occasional evening text to my loved ones. They weren’t for taking photos, they weren’t for playing Pokemon Go atop a Northumbrian hillock, they were off and in my bag the whole time. This is important for later.
On the first day, I solely used my GoPro Hero 10. It was easy to use, shot good footage, and the battery held up well. On the second day, I used the DJI Osmo Action 4. At least, I tried to.
Upon opening the Action 4 prior to the trip, I’d realised that the whole camera was set up in Chinese. For the life of me, I couldn’t work out how to change the language. After an hour of fiddling and Googling to no avail, I learned the important buttons for filming and packed it away. I’d simply remember to push the shutter button to start recording, it couldn’t be that difficult. How wrong I was.
I don’t know if all DJI cameras arrive set to Chinese language, or if it was just the device sent for review.
DJI Osmo Action 4 Error Messages
I managed to shoot some footage on the DJI Osmo Action 4 in the early hours of day two. It worked as well as the GoPro I’d used the day before, and even came with a solid protective exoskeleton which made me feel more comfortable slinging it back in my backpack after shooting some footage.
The battery was doing well too, and I was confident that I’d be able to shoot a good amount of footage to compare with the GoPro when I got home. Until disaster struck. I booted up the Action 4 for a particularly picturesque section of the B-road we were walking along (the first two days of the hike are dull), and was greeted with an error message. I didn’t understand what the error was, it being written in Chinese, but I could scroll through some kind of instructions before proceeding as normal. I was a little weirded out, but things felt okay. Until they weren’t.
I skipped past the error message a couple of times to shoot more footage, but around lunchtime I found that I couldn’t skip any more. I was stuck, locked out of the camera I was trying to use. Worried about phone battery, I couldn’t Google a solution or translate the text. In fact, the only words in English were ‘DJI Mimo App’.
The DJI Mimo App
My old nemesis, we meet again. I’ve installed the DJI Mimo app on previous phones in order to use the DJI Osmo Mobile 6 gimbal. The Mobile 6 is a fantastic piece of kit, making my cinematography at events far more smooth and steady. But to get the most out of it, you need to connect to the DJI Mimo app, which drains your phone’s battery faster than a vampire drains a virgin’s blood.
I accepted it for the gimbal as the phone needed a way of connecting to it in order to synchronise the footage with the gimbal’s stabilisers and suchlike. The gimbal does work without app connection, but it doesn’t have full functionality. But why does an action camera need to be linked with an app in the first place?
For full disclosure, the GoPro Hero 10 also suggests connecting to an app, but it doesn’t push you once you’ve said no. And it certainly doesn’t lock you out of the device.
So there I was, with half a day’s worth of footage, and no way to use the Action 4 for the remaining four and a half days of my hike. This is where app functionality and device connectivity has gone a step too far. Action cameras are for taking out and about, for adventuring with, for getting into scrapes and odd situations. They can’t rely on connecting to a smartphone, because not every situation or adventurer will have a smartphone available to them.
I’d tested and set up the camera at home before taking it on the hike, and it never prompted me to download the Mimo App before this point.
The Big Issue With The DJI Osmo Action 4
The Action 4 is otherwise very well equipped. From viewing my footage after the fact, the video is high quality, well stabilised, and even the audio is reasonable, considering I didn’t have an external microphone. The camera comes with three batteries – one more than its rival – and a little hard plastic shell to charge them in. This was far easier to plug into a portable charger than the balancing act of the GoPro’s battery charging station. It even comes with that exoskeleton to protect it from bumps and drops.
But this is all pointless if you need to connect to a battery-draining app in order to use the camera. Or, if I’ve misunderstood and the app was not the problem, the on-cam software needs to be simple and unobstructive, even in another language. I cannot think of a single problem I could have faced that should result in being barred from shooting video. The camera wasn’t out of battery, it wasn’t overheated nor too cold. The lens wasn’t cracked, blocked, or otherwise obscured. The touchscreen was still functional.
I’m sure there’s a good camera inside the DJI Osmo Action 4 – my small amounts of footage showed me that much. But it’s not a user-friendly experience, and the software doesn’t seem primed for adventurers in the same way the hardware is. Despite a disappointing trip, I haven’t been put off looking to DJI for gear in the future. I’ll just make sure to work out how to change the language before heading into the wilderness next time around. And hey, at least I got acrummy board gameout of it all.
