Finally getting around to doing my DJI Action 2 review video. So if you haven't seen
my previous videos, they were all to do with just testing out video quality,
audio quality, that kind of thing. So do check those videos out if you want to see
more in-depth footage, I guess. This video's going to be about the review,
so I'm going to try and not to make it too long, but if you do want to skip through any parts of
the video, then just go to the description and you'll see some chapters in there.
If you don't know, then the Action camera is a 4K Action camera. It shoots 120fps,
and it's waterproof up to 10 meters depth. After, well for anymore than that, then you need to
attach a case to it. But just on its own, without anything, it is waterproof. It's also dustproof
and also drop-proof, but I haven't tried that out because I'm actually quite scared to drop it,
even though the lens and the screen are both made of Gorilla Glass. But it's still, I just
don't feel comfortable dropping it on purpose to test that out, so I haven't tried that out.
But it is awesome. You've got a Ultra Wide field of view, so if you want to capture
more in the frame, then you've got the option to do that with the Ultra Wide field of view.
And did I mention how small this thing is? It's so small. It's awesome. It's so inconspicuous.
If you wanted to just go out and this was the only camera that you wanted to have, you're
going to feel more comfortable if you're one of those people that doesn't like to have a
massive setup. This camera's awesome for that and just for capturing FPV shots as well. So you can
mount it to pretty much anything because it has, sorry, you can pretty much mount it to anything
because it has magnets. And wearing it on your chest with the necklace or on your head with the
head strap or just mounting it anywhere really is just really, really great. And it's so small,
so you can literally put it in really tight spaces as well, which is great.
In my previous videos, the first video that I did was basically just
a test to see what the video quality was going to be like, and I was just trying out all the
different features as well, like stabilisation, Horizon Leveling, and that kind of thing.
And yeah, the video quality is really good. I was really impressed. It's such a small camera
and it's got a really small sensor, but yeah, the video quality is really, really good.
I have noticed, much like I noticed with the Pocket 2, when you shoot in the Normal Colour
Profile, it's by no means unusable. The Normal Colour Profile is great, but I just prefer
D-Cinelike because you get more dynamic range. The skin tones just seem to look a lot better
with the D-Cinelike Colour Profile when you colour correct it, and I also found that to be the case
with low light as well. Not so much indoors when I had artificial light, but just mainly outdoors
with natural light, the skin tones just look a lot better when you use D-Cinelike. So yeah,
video quality is awesome, but do consider using D-Cinelike if you're going to use the camera. And
I created some LUTs for D-Cinelike, so when I had the Pocket 2, I mean I still have the Pocket 2,
but when I got the Pocket 2, I basically created some LUTs just to make it a lot quicker when
editing and colour correcting. So do check out those LUTs, if you want to shoot in D-Cinelike.
You can get the Action 2 in different combos. And the one that I went for was the Dual Screen Combo
because I wanted to have the Touchscreen Module. The audio quality, I've noticed,
and I don't know if it's because I think I need to just play around with the audio a little bit more,
but the audio quality just from the camera itself alone without the Touchscreen Module attached
sounds really, really good. I was actually really impressed with the quality of the audio. When I
attached the Touchscreen Module, I definitely played around with the audio settings more
because, when I put the front cameras on... the front mic, sorry, it didn't sound as good
as just the microphone from the camera itself.
And then I kind of played around a little bit more, and I put all the
mics on. That sounded okay, but then you have this weird dual sound going on, like an echo.
And then I tried it with the front and back speakers, which sounded a little bit better,
but I still feel like I just need to do a few more tests with the audio.
At the moment I'm using an external mic because it's quite windy, and one of the things I did
notice was even though you've got the wind noise reduction option and you switch it on, it does cut
out a lot of the wind, but if it's really windy, it just doesn't cut out enough wind, so the audio
just becomes unusable at that point. So I got myself a USB-C mic. It's the Rode VideoMic Me-C,
so I'm hoping, because it is a windy day today, that the audio does sound better because I've got
the furry windshield on as well. But I'm going to put another video together just purely on audio,
just me testing, doing some more tests, trying it out more, but yeah,
just the camera on its own without anything, the audio is fantastic. And with the Touchscreen
Module, the audio is still good. It's just figuring out the correct settings for it.
So one thing to note about the Touchscreen Module is the fact that it's not waterproof.
So it's great having the little camera and that being completely waterproof, but as soon as you
attach the Power Module or the Touchscreen Module, it's not waterproof. You'd have to put it in an
additional cage for it to be waterproof. But the Touchscreen Module has an SD card slot so you can
expand the storage of the camera. The internal memory of the camera is 32GB. So it's decent.
It's enough for you to get by for the day. If you're just shooting some b-roll and you're
vlogging and stuff, it's definitely enough for you to get by, but it is also nice having that extra
bit of storage, so having the SD card slot. And the other thing is you actually need the
Touchscreen or the Power Module in order to charge the camera which is a little bit,
a little bit annoying because if you were going out all day and you were running out of battery,
you would have to have multiple Touchscreens if you wanted to have multiple batteries, much like,
say, for example, if you had the GoPro and you just got additional batteries for it. With this,
you would have to buy multiple Touchscreens, or you'd have to buy multiple Power Modules.
And the thing with the Touchscreens is you're buying the Touchscreen because you actually want
to see yourself, so you would have to actually buy those additional Touchscreens. The other thing,
of course, is you could just have a power pack. So I carry a power pack around with me, and when
I'm not using it, I will just plug it into the Touchscreen Module and just keep that charged up.
So I haven't found it to be the case where I've completely run out of battery
and I haven't been able to use the Touchscreen. So yeah, that's just one way of getting around it.
One of the things I also noticed was that when you're transferring footage
from the camera to the SD card, it is very slow. So I don't tend to do that. I just tend to
transfer it directly from the camera itself. So
I'll plug in, I'll attach the Touchscreen Module, and then I'll plug in the USB-C cable in my PC,
and then just offload the footage that way if I record to the camera's internal storage.
Otherwise, I just record to the SD card and then just offload the footage that way.
So I, personally, haven't experienced any overheating issues yet. And, granted,
I have been outside, and the temperatures have been between 8 degrees or up to 16 degrees,
I think, one of the days I was filming on, but I haven't experienced any overheating issues.
I've been filming in 4K30, 4K60 and 4K120. It is an action camera for me. It is an action camera,
something that I would be using outdoors, and a lot of people, I think, would be using it in the
same situation. So in terms of the overheating issues, I just haven't had any of those.
I will say, though, that the Action 2 does get quite warm whilst it's charging. I did notice
that it does get warm whilst it's charging and whilst I was filming outdoors. It did get warm
when I was filming 4K120, but it just didn't shut off at all. It didn't stop recording for me. So
pretty chuffed about that. That's what I was hoping for in this kind of shooting situation.
Stabilisation's really good. RockSteady works great. I tried it with the stabilisation
on and with stabilisation off, and it worked great. Horizon Leveling is also fantastic as well.
The only thing is with Horizon Leveling, you're restricted to Standard field of
view whereas with RockSteady, you have access to all the different fields of view.
So Horizon Leveling you can only use with Standard, and you can only access Horizon
Leveling when you're shooting 2.7K or 1080, and you can only go up to maximum of 60fps as well. So
that's something to bear in mind if you really need to use Horizon Leveling.
When I got the Action 2, when I first got it out the box and I started using it, it was,
obviously it didn't have the firmware update applied, so I could only shoot up to 4K60. So when
that becomes available to you within the app, do upgrade, do update the firmware because there are
a lot of improvements within that firmware update, and you'll also, you'll also get access to 4K120.
One of the things I forgot to mention in the, when I was talking about the over heating was that if
you're in the UK and Europe, I believe it is, the temperature setting, which allows you to record
for longer if the camera starts to overheat, is grayed out when you get to the High setting. So
you can only have that set to Standard rather than High.
So, overall, I do think it is a really great camera. I just, I think it's so awesome that you
can have this tiny little camera, which is just, the quality is just, is just amazing. And what
I want to do is actually do a video comparing this to the Pocket 2 because I know a lot of
people have asked me about it. And a lot of people are unsure whether they want to get the Pocket 2
or the GoPro as well, the GoPro HERO 10. So there'll be a comparison video between that soon.
But, certainly, with the Pocket 2, I'm curious myself to see
what the difference is and what the comparisons are between them.
So look out for that video and and the GoPro HERO 10 comparison video as well.
But I hope this video was useful in some way. I hope it gives you an idea of whether you
would actually want to buy this camera or not buy this camera. And if it was useful,
then do you give it a Like, and if you want to see any more videos, I'm planning on putting together
a playlist of just useful videos, much like I did for the Pocket 2. So if you want to see more
of those, then subscribe. But yeah, thanks for checking out this video, and see you next time.