My exact DJI Action 4 settings for MTB & MX

So you got your new DJI Osmo Action 4 but it can get tricky to find your way around the menu and pick the best settings for you.

Don’t worry I’ve got you covered! I’ve been filming 50+ downhill mountain biking POV videos testing its features and finding the best settings – and sharing them with you. Look for sample videos for each preset.

My most-used settings

This is the exact preset I use for the Suspension Traveler YouTube channel. They will work in difficult, changing lighting conditions going in and out of tree cover.

Using these semi-manual settings, the camera will only adjust the shutter speed and ISO automatically within the ranges you set. Everything else is in your control and will repeatedly lead to amazing video quality!

How to find your own style

Feel free to change some things around to find your style. Here are some pointers:

• 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.
• FOV: Ultrawide is one of the best, immersive FOVs around currently (in my opinion). But it does come at a cost with stabilization. Turn to Wide for amazingly stable footage.
• ISO: You may find that ISO 800 or even 400 looks even better as it prevents the camera from going too bright, resulting in deep, saturated footage. For overcast days or dark forests, 3200 might be the way to go.
• Noise Reduction is on all the time if you set it. So only use this when specifically shooting in low-light. Otherwise, your footage will get soft and mushy needlessly.
• Wind-noise reduction can make the audio sound overly processed. The camera does switch off the front-facing microphones by itself when the wind gets too loud which is enough to get good audio. Try out a windsock (“Windslayer“) or piece of foam if you want to cut out wind noise even more.

For low-light situations or at night, I added a few tweaks to get optimized settings. There’s a full article dedicated to filming with the DJI Osmo Action 4 in low-light.

Settings to use with ND Filters

Everybody knows that ND filters ruin stabilization. No worries tho! I found specific shutter speeds that allow both motion blur and stabilization at the same time:

These settings will keep stabilization working well but ND filters limit usability in low light. You’ll need the manual exposure control here to keep the shutter speed at a fixed value – which is the whole point of using an ND filter.

By the way, I got the DJI Osmo Action ND filter set. But I’m only using the ND8 for MTB videos. Anything higher just gets too dark. Other brands even have an ND4 included like the Skyreat ND Filter set, they’re not swapped as easily tho.

What are ND filters and what do they do?

They’re basically sunglasses for your camera, reducing the overall light exposure. This allows lower shutter speeds without overexposure. And a slow shutter results in natural motion blur.
ND filters DO NOT change colors, increase contrast or increase saturation.

In other words: If you want awesome, cinematic motion blur, you need to have a fixed, slow shutter speed. And ND filters allow you to do that without making everything too bright.

The only problem with action cameras is that you probably need them to stabilize. And their electronic image stabilization needs crisp (not blurred) frames. Bummer. That’s why you need adjusted settings with ND filters.

To be honest, for the first time ever using an action camera, I believe the OA4’s automatic settings will lead to good-looking footage! The color reproduction is great, white balance is accurate and stabilization works even in low light.

These will work well in any lighting condition, keeping footage stable and colors popping straight out of the camera without any editing required.

For anyone looking to fine-tune their look or even edit and color grade their footage, I’ve got some different PRO settings for you.

Setting shutter limits using “PRO settings”

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.

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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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Battery saving tips

While the Osmo Action 4 has incredible battery life, there are some small tweaks to get even more juice out of each squeeze (battery)!

Screen off when recording

This should be as soon as possible on a mountain bike. While riding you’ll never even see the screen. So there is no use in leaving the screen on and wasting battery charge. Turn this option to 3 seconds for increased battery life.

Auto Power Off

Kind of self-explanatory. How long it takes from your last input to when the camera turns itself off. 30 seconds to 1 minute is usually a got period.

Especially useful in combination with the quick-record feature!

Snapshot

Don’t let yourself get held back by waiting for the camera to record. One-press-record is extremely helpful for capturing snapshot moments.

As a bonus, it also turns off immediately after stopping recording.

Screen brightness

Everyone knows that big, bright displays are the number one power consumer on devices. There’s no harm in turning it down, even on bright days. 30% – 50% brightness is usually enough and will save you precious battery!

Single Screen Preview (Screen off when locked)

Complicated name, simple feature: When this is on, whatever screen is not being used, is turned off. For POV stuff, this means the front screen, and for vlogging the back screen is off – saving battery life whenever the camera is on.

Voice control

This one’s quite power-hungry, as the camera has to be listening for audio queues at all times. Turn it off whenever possible.

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Bonus tips and tricks

Naming management

A neat little quality-of-life feature that allows you to name files and folders in advance. Very helpful when on multi-day trips where you want to save different locations in different folders. Or have files named in a specific way within a folder.

3×3 grid

Don’t be sleeping on this one! This underrated overlay is perfect not only to align the adhesive mounts on a helmet but also to find the perfect camera angle that captures the trail not just your front wheel. Find the picture below for how this looks on-screen.

Ideally, the trail and horizon should meet somewhere near the center or even on the top horizontal line. With the handlebars in the lower third, it makes the footage enjoyable and inviting to watch as the viewer can look ahead on the trail and also get a feel of how the bike’s handling.

Overexposure warning

This helps with optimizing the parameters of your manual settings. Overexposed areas are marked by zebra stripes.

There is no way to save overexposed footage (as I showed you above), but slightly underexposed one by brightening it up in editing software. The white, detail-less overexposed areas will stay detail-less. Darker details can be brought forward.

Orientation lock: off

This auto-detect works so well that there is no reason to turn it off. Also recommended for easy swapping between helmet, chest mount, and vertical mode.

Fullscreen: off

This has nothing to do with the recording format, only what’s displayed on the touch-screen finder. Both a 4:3 and 16:9 format will get cropped to fit “fullscreen” on the square screen.

Leave it off to be able to see the actual frame you’re actually recording including the peripheral space on either side, where you can look forward into corners or see the rider’s arms and handlebars. Those sections of the frame are crucial for MTB.

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