DJI Action 4: My exact low-light settings (crazy stabilized)

At night and in low light, the DJI Osmo Action 4 struggles like any action cam – unless you know how to dial in settings and turn your Action 4 into a low-light beast!

My secret sauce: A shutter limit guarantees that stabilization still works well and an ISO limit prevents excessive grain or “noise”.

Here is a sample MTB POV video of my buddy Hugo using those settings in pitch-black darkness:

In my testing I found the new low-light mode (night mode or EIS priority) to be not as reliable. It results in ghosting and jittering – I think because of a problem with low shutter speeds and stabilization.

Shutter speed hack

That’s why I use a fixed shutter of 1/120 minimum for MTB (works best on helmet cam). 1/320 is best on a chest mount if it gets rough. A faster shutter will improve ghosting, but also makes the footage darker.

I always use Rocksteady (not RS+). On a helmet, you may even get away with no stabilization if the trail is smooth.

A slow shutter means that the sensor has more time to capture light for each frame. More light = brighter image. Our goal is to slow the shutter only so much that ISO can stay relatively low (reduce noise) and stabilization still works.

The Osmo Action 4 does have a dedicated Low-Light mode now (discussed further down). But I found that manual settings get great video quality at night reliably – especially if you need good stabilization like on a night MTB ride.

Find your own style

Feel free to change some things around to match your situation. Here are some pointers:

• Shutter: This is the most important setting for low-light. By setting a minimum shutter speed, we prevent blurry, unstabilized results. This is basically our own version of Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) priority. Go up to 1/240 if you need more stabilization at the expense of brightness. Or down to 1/60 for no stabilization.
• ISO: More is not better here, anything over 3200 will result in grainy footage. You may find that ISO 1600 also works well if you got a decent light source..
• White Balance: Automatic works fine in most situations. If you notice a red or blue hue, try a fixed value like 4000 Kelvin or even 3500K for a cool, cyberpunk look.
• Noise Reduction is a permanent processing effect that reduces grain, but also makes everything a little mushy. Try which setting is okay for you.
• Sharpness: Another post-processing effect. Sharpness makes grainy footage even worse, so avoid it in low light!
• Colors: Both Normal and D-Log M provide 10-bit color depth. Only use D-Log if you plan on color grading as it does look bland otherwise.

For anyone not interested in playing around with manual exposure settings, editing, or color grading, there are some easy tweaks you can make and take advantage of some new low-light-specific settings.

New low-light mode settings

Note: EIS Priority (automatic stabilization priority) will result in a dark image. So for very dark scenes like night-time shooting, you may have to turn it off at the expense of less stabilization.

These will work in most night-time conditions, provided there is at least one good light source available. Light street lights or a strong helmet lamp. The ISO range allows the exposure to adjust without creating excessive noise from high ISO. For daylight filming projects, use my other recommended Osmo Action 4 settings for mountain biking.

To even get access to all of the settings necessary, you need to activate Pro Controls. On the Action 3 that’s deactivated by default. So here’s how you unlock the full power of your Osmo Action:

How to set up shutter speed ranges

Unlock PRO settings

In order to gain access to the full list of settings, you need to activate PRO settings.

1. Simply access the camera setting menu on the right of the screen.
2. And on the top right of that menu, you see the toggle for “PRO” settings.
3. It’s activated when it’s yellow instead of black.

You immediately see additional settings added when it’s on. The detailed video settings are accessed through the menu on the right side. See the pictures below for reference.

How to set shutter speed range

Now in the exposure settings that are showing up in these PRO settings, you can choose between Manual and Auto exposure. Only in Auto you can select a shutter speed range.

Simply open the menu and tap on the yellow Shutter option in the top left. Now you can set a limit to the slowest shutter the camera can fall back to when in low-light scenarios.

So, there you have it. That’s how you get settings that reliably record cinematic footage that looks more like what you experience through your own eyes. Read on for a deep dive into what each setting does.

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The Most Important settings for low light

White Balance (WB)

Recommended: 3500K – 4500K

Also referred to as color temperature, this is the red or blue tint. During daytime, a WB of 5500 Kelvin is best. That’s the color temp of the sun. Makes sense. When the sun is gone, however, a much lower WB is necessary as the temperature of artificial light or moonlight is much “cooler”.

The “correct” one depends on the temp of the artificial light you’re using. But it’s also an artistic choice, so feel free to play around. If you want to go for a cyberpunk-esque cool look, go as low as 3300K. Or 4000K for a more balanced look.

Shutter speed

Recommended: 1/120

On a normal hand-held camera, you’d pick a shutter speed of twice the frames per second for a cinematic look – 1/60 for 30fps and 1/48 for 24fps. Not so for action cams, which need to stabilize the footage.

Stabilization requires fast shutter speeds and no motion blur. I found that the Osmo Action 4 needs a minimum shutter of 4x the framerate to stabilize when riding a smooth mountain bike trail. That’s how I arrived at the 1/120 number. For any rougher activities requiring more stabilization, 1/240 is probably the sweet spot between brightness and blur.

In daylight, you would use ND filters to slow down shutter speeds without overexposing the image. At night that effect happens by itself and the challenge becomes keeping the ISO as low as possible.

ISO

Recommended: 3200 max

ISO is the maximum light sensitivity of the camera, and the Osmo Action 4 lets you define a pretty large range it can work within. However, you don’t want to give it more than it really needs as more ISO means a more grainy image.

This is why to set the ISO as low as possible. 6400 should be the upper limit when using fast shutter speeds of 1/240. Try if you can get away with 1/120 shutter to lower ISO to 3200. You’ll notice the difference!

There’s a definite trade-off between stable or grainy (noisy) video.

Color Profile

Recommended: Normal

In low-light conditions, the “Normal” color profile may be your best friend for making an otherwise dull scenery pop. For color grading, the D-Log M profile is more usable. Whatever you pick is completely subjective.

Both feature 10-bit color depth, so you’re not limited either way.

That’s all you really need to know to go out and get a good-looking video at night! Have fun filming.