DJI OSMO ACTION CAMERA REVIEW: GIVING GOPRO REAL COMPETITION
DJI OSMO ACTION CAMERA REVIEW: GIVING GOPRO REAL COMPETITION
Couple of years ago GoPro tried to eat DJI’s lunch by
stepping into the drone business. It didn’t go so well. In 2019, it’s DJI’s
address poke into on GoPro’s turf with the launch of its first action camera,
the $350 DJI Osmo Action. The result? It’s almost nearly as good because the
Hero7 Black, but it’s breathing right down GoPro’s neck.
Let’s start with the fundamentals. The Osmo Action looks a
hell of tons sort of a GoPro. It’s an equivalent dark, boxy shape with a lens
on the left. Around back, like the Hero7, may be a touchscreen display. The
Osmo’s may be a wider 16:9 screen (the Hero7’s is 4:3), which provides you a
bigger image, but the screen may be a lot dimmer than the GoPro’s which I found
frustrating in bright sunlight. The most important physical difference is that
the Osmo Action features a screen on the front of the camera, too. It’s a little,
1.4-inch square, so you can’t see plenty, but it’s generally ok to ascertain if
your silhouette is in frame or not. Definitely handy.
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| DJI OSMO ACTION CAMERA REVIEW: GIVING GOPRO REAL COMPETITION |
The two cameras ultimately have more similarities than
differences. Both can shoot video at resolutions up to 4K60 and 1080p240, also
as 12MP still photos in JPG and RAW formats. The Osmo Action is slightly more
waterproof than the Hero7 (36 feet vs. 33 feet). Both cameras have detachable
front lens covers which may be switched for ND filters or polarizers, but I
found DJI’s easier to swap in and out. Battery life is more or less identical.
I did a rundown test with both cameras set to 4K24, stabilized, with Wi-Fi on
but not connected, and therefore the GoPro’s GPS turned off (since the DJI has
none). The Hero7 Black made it to 88 minutes before abandoning the ghost, while
the Osmo Action made it to 90. Basically a wash, in other words. Enabling GPS
on the GoPro will shorten its run time a touch, but we’re never docking it for
including that option.
One of the banner features here is DJI’s bitmap
stabilization, which it calls RockSteady, and is made to rival GoPro’s
HyperSmooth (gimmicky names much, guys?). Verdict? It does a superb job, and
it’s roughly as smooth as HyperSmooth, if not slightly smoother. But the
general effect isn’t nearly as good because so as to realize about an
equivalent level of stability because the GoPro, the DJI crops the frame far more,
and it’s very noticeable. Not only is that the field of view considerably
narrower, but pixels are stretched and there’s a definite drop by image
quality. The Hero7 Black is usually even as smooth, but manages to stay the
shots nice and wide, so if you were employing a selfie stick you’d probably
still get your entire body in. Not such a lot with the Osmo Action, which may
be a big deal if you’re capturing something like snowboarding.
The Osmo Action offers HDR video, which are some things the
Hero7 lacks, but I’m not completely sold thereon. HDR mode gives you a small
little bit of improved dynamic range, but really it just seems to be cranking
up the exposure and saturation a touch, and it sacrifices the power to shoot
stabilized video (and 60 fps). It just isn’t well worth the trade-off. It’s
better to use DJI’s flat color profile called D-Cinelike then tweak the footage
in your nonlinear editor (e.g. Adobe Premiere or movie X) after the very fact. D-Cinelike
works impressively well and that I found that the footage it produced was quite
flexible and slightly easier to figure with than GoPro’s flat color profile. If
you set both cameras in their standard color mode, though, the Hero7’s footage
looks better straight out of the camera. Colors pop a touch more, the contrast
looks good, and therefore the camera does a rather better job metering
exposure.
THE AMOUNT OF CROPPING NEEDED FOR DJI’S IMAGE STABILIZATION
LIMITS WHAT you'll CAPTURE.
When stabilization is turned on, the scales are tipped even
further toward GoPro, and pictures from the Hero7 Black are noticeably sharper
and cleaner, because its pixels aren’t being stretched the maximum amount. The
Osmo Action’s display has about two seconds of lag when stabilization is on,
which is disconcerting. In low light, both cameras are pretty bad. The Hero7 is
brighter and therefore the colors are tons more accurate, but there’s plenty of
noise. The Osmo Action’s image isn’t as noisy, but it’s a darker image and
colours are way off. Once I manually corrected the white balance in post,
though, the Osmo’s image was a touch sharper. Either way, neither of those
cameras are great for nighttime captures.
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| DJI OSMO ACTION CAMERA REVIEW: GIVING GOPRO REAL COMPETITION |
Both of those cameras are capable of shooting both RAW and
JPEG photos. The DJI uses the widely adapted .DNG format, while GoPro uses its
own .GPR format, but both are editable in Adobe Lightroom. i used to be
surprised to ascertain that while they were shooting at an equivalent ISO and
aperture, the DJI used a slower shutter speed than the GoPro (1/1600th sec. vs.
1/1800th sec.) and yet it still produced a darker image. I’m unsure if meaning
the image sensor isn’t quite as sensitive or if it’s a format issue, but i
assumed that was interesting. Most of the people will probably just shoot
stills in auto mode, though. There again, the GoPro may be a bit brighter. i
prefer the colour of the sky better within the DJI version, but foreground
detail and lighting is best from the GoPro.
Audio was just about a wash. Neither camera has a tremendous
mic setup. The GoPro’s mics have a touch of a hotter tone, which I found more
pleasing, but its dealer’s choice. The one strange thing was that once I
mounted both cameras to the handlebars of my all-terrain bike, the DJI recorded
this loud, abrasive clicking sound, which the opposite two cameras managed to
melt to the purpose that it had been barely noticeable, so you only hear the
sound of the wind and therefore the tires on the bottom. far more pleasant.
Speaking of other cameras, I also included the Sony RX0 Mark
II in my testing. It had been a touch of an apples to oranges comparison,
because as I noted in our review, it’s really more of a vlogging cam than an
action cam. The sector of view is much too narrow and therefore the refore the
stabilization is terrible compared to the DJI and the GoPro. On the opposite
side of the coin, the Sony absolutely stomped the opposite two in low-light
performance and image clarity, which isn’t a surprise because its sensor is
twice the dimensions. It had the simplest audio performance, too. So if you’re
getting to be doing more talking than gnar-shredding, and you don’t mind
spending twice the maximum amount, the Sony might not be a nasty option.
DJI did an exemplary job with the menu system on the Osmo
Action. The touchscreen works well, and it’s generally pretty intuitive to use,
though occasionally options aren’t where you think that they’re getting to be. One
among the neatest features is custom modes, which essentially enables you to
store profiles of settings then quickly switch between them, kind of sort of a
custom button on a DSLR. Meanwhile, the fast Switch button comes in handy for
switching shooting modes (or flipping between front screen and back) in underwater
situations. In contrast, DJI’s Mimo smartphone app needs tons of labor (I
tested the Android version on a Google Pixel 3 XL). It had trouble displaying
videos I’d just shot, it doesn’t have an equivalent easy sharing options that
GoPro has built into its apps, and there’s no live-streaming option, which may
be a surprise since most of DJI’s drones have that option.
Once we start stepping into frame rates, the GoPro pulls
further ahead. Both the Osmo Action and therefore the Hero7 Black can fully
stabilize 4K60 video using RockSteady / HyperSmooth, respectively (GoPro added
this capability via a firmware update not too long ago). The Hero7 Black still
comes out on top, largely due to its SuperView feature. SuperView takes a
taller, 4:3 image, then squishes it and applies anti-distortion, in-camera, to
supply a 16:9 image that gets far more of you within the frame. For activities
like snowboarding, surfing, biking, or anything that involves a selfie stick,
it’s my go-to field of view. The closest answer DJI has is that the ability to
shoot 4:3 at 2.7K30, requiring you to manually smoosh it into 16:9 in
post-production software, which is simpler said than done. In contrast, the
Hero7 Black can shoot 4:3 at 2.7K60 (i.e. twice as fast), or just 2.7K60 SuperView,
while stabilized, which is such a lot easier.
The Hero7 Black features a few other features the Osmo
Action is missing, such as 2.7K video at 120 fps. It also uses the new H.265
codec, which crams more data into a smaller package. Both cameras have hyperlapse
features (i.e. stabilized time-lapse video), but the Osmo Action can only
output them at 2.7K30 while the Hero7 Black’s hyperlapse (called TimeWarp,
again with the gimmicky names) goes to a full 4K30.
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| DJI OSMO ACTION CAMERA REVIEW: GIVING GOPRO REAL COMPETITION |
A DEDICATED IN-CAMERA SLOW-MOTION MODE are some things THE
OSMO ACTION HAS THAT THE GOPRO DOESN’T.
The Osmo Action features a dedicated slo-mo mode, which
produces videos that begin of the camera able to replay in movie. It’s an
excellent feature, but it could use more options. For instance, currently the
utmost is 1080p 8x movie, but the resulting file is 30 fps. I nearly always mix
my videos right down to the more cinematic 24 fps, which suggests that for an
equivalent shooting speed (240 fps), I might be getting 10x movie. You’ll do
this with the DJI (and the GoPro) by manually shooting 1080p240, then slowing
it down 10x in Premiere or movie, but it might be nice to incorporate that
within the quick options. Also, GoPro should strongly consider stealing that
feature, as currently you've got to slow your over-cranked footage down using
apps or desktop software.
The Hero7 Black weighs 4.1 ounces (116 grams), while the
Osmo Action weighs 4.37 ounces (124 grams). Once you hold them in your hands
you'll tell that the Osmo is heavier, but the difference is slight enough that
it’s not getting to cause far more neck fatigue if you’re wearing it on a
helmet. Unfortunately, the Osmo Action doesn’t have GPS or an HDMI port. Having
GPS enables you to feature overlays that include your speed and even a map, and
it’s a shame that’s missing here. HDMI is basically nice for quickly watching
footage on an enormous screen after an extended day on the slopes, or maybe
using an external monitor.
The DJI Osmo Action price is $50 cheaper than the Hero7
Black, though practically speaking, you'll usually find the Hero7 on sale
somewhere. Albeit there's a $50 difference, though, I’d still recommend the
GoPro. Image quality is simply a touch better, with nicer colors and sharper
pictures straight out of the camera. They both offer incredible stabilization,
but the GoPro sacrifices less to realize it, with less severe image cropping
and more frame rates, also as its fantastic SuperView FOV. The Hero7 Black is
simply the higher camera, but not by plenty.
This should be a warning call for GoPro. It’s taken the
California Company a few years to urge to the present point. The very fact that
DJI got this close on its very first try should make the people at GoPro
nervous and send them scrambling to introduce some real innovation for the
Hero8 (likely coming this fall). Personally, as a consumer, I’m really looking
forward to the present race.
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