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DJI Osmo Nano — My issues and fixes while visiting Paris! (feat. Freewell ND filters)
🔗 FREEWELL ND: https://geni.us/freewell-djinano-ndstd
🔗 FREEWELL ND+PL: https://geni.us/freewell-djinano-ndbd
I took the DJI Nano to Paris to see if this tiny camera actually fits my workflow. Between the lack of autofocus, overheating, and a few surprising drops, it wasn’t all smooth sailing — but adding Freewell’s ND and PL filters completely changed how usable it is in bright conditions or when filming screens. In this video, I show real‑world footage, the issues I ran into, and whether this camera is staying in my kit or getting replaced.
► WATCH NEXT
- Freewell Filter for the DJI Pocket 3 - https://loicba.me/yt/KgPv019mdos
- Short film with Freewell Filters - https://loicba.me/yt/hyM3f_oF_ao
- Filters for the stars - https://loicba.me/yt/cKYHj26coE8
► COME SAY HI!
https://loicbellemarealford.ca
► GEAR I USE ON YOUTUBE
https://loicbellemarealford.ca/gear
#dji #djinano #freewell
► CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
00:00 Introduction
02:21 First Issue with the DJI Nano
06:12 Second Issue with the DJI Nano Camera
07:36 The fix! (Feat. Freewell ND filters)
14:50 Third issue with the DJI Nano
16:06 Fourth issue with the DJI Nano
16:54 Why I chose this camera?
20:41 DJI Nano vs Insta360 Go Ultra
21:51 DJI Nano vs DJI Action 6
22:38 DJI Nano vs DJI Pocket 3
24:18 Will I keep the the DJI Nano?
► MY MUSIC
- Affiliate link for Epidemic Sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com/referral/iu5gau/
- 0:00 Intro
- 2:21 First Issue with the DJI Nano
- 6:12 Second Issue with the DJI Nano Camera
- 7:36 The fix! (Feat. Freewell ND filters)
- 14:50 Third issue with the DJI Nano
- 16:06 Fourth issue with the DJI Nano
- 16:54 Why I chose this camera?
- 20:41 DJI Nano vs Insta360 Go Ultra
- 21:51 DJI Nano vs DJI Action 6
- 22:38 DJI Nano vs DJI Pocket 3
- 24:18 Will I keep the the DJI Nano?
Hello everyone, Bia Pari. A few weeks ago, I bought this DJ Nano camera, thinking it will allow me to get some shots that I can't get with my other cameras. But there's a few issues that make me wonder, is this the right camera for me? Should I switch it for another one? Let's discover this while I'm visiting Paris. For those of you who channel, I'm Len Mahalford, a young photographer and filmmaker on the dream to become better at this art. This is not going to be an in-depth video about this DJI Pano camera. Instead, I'm going to be going around Paris showing you some of the parts using it as a vlogging camera. [music] I've been testing it in a bunch of other scenarios to see where works well and not. And that's more what we're going to be talking about inside of this video. [music] We made it to Pari here. Uh we can see the Eiffel Tower right in the background here. I got the coffee done. Now it's time to go and take a few photos around here. There's the Eiffel Tower around here. And there's Lake Valid somewhere in the back here. So I'll just walk around, take a few shots. The reason I got this camera was so I could take some better shots and have more interactive types of views. So, it's a perfect time to test it out. [music] Heat. Heat. [music] Let's talk about the first issue I have with the DJI Nano camera, and this is the lack of autofocus. There's a very specific scenario I want to create using this camera and it's [music] having this arm here where I can attach a camera on the end right here. And this allows to get cool shots I can repeat at different places and show myself using the camera in a very cool angle. If you've never seen these type of effects, you can look at what Becca Fasace does. She has really good examples of this [music] and it's think something really nice to see how the camera is being used and how you're using other types of electronics. But because there's no autofocus on this camera and it focuses about half a meter to meter away, the top of my camera here and even my hand are all going to be out of focus, [music] but the background will be in focus. So, if we do a little demo right here, we're going to see that the background will be focused, but not everything else, which is kind of annoying. So, you can come here and take a shot and we can see that's a pretty cool effect that's going to create. But, it's a bit my fault because when I looked at the website, I did see that it wasn't specifying that it didn't have autofocus. But I also checked the DJI [music] Action 6 that does have autofocus and they also don't specify in the specs that it has autofocus. So, it's a little bit confusing for me and I really would have liked if it had autofocus on here so we could get these types of shots. I really hope that in camera in the future they're going to fix this one. Oh, [music] and yes, there is a solution for this. I could use a lens to add in front of it and bring the focus closer to front here. I'm probably [music] gonna try come on ordering one on Amazon or something like that to see if it works or not, but I'm not too sure it's actually going to fix my issue [music] fully. [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] I'm not too sure what was happening with me, but a little bit earlier today, I dropped the camera like five times. within like 5 minutes, which was not too great. And then I created this little handle to be able to drop it less and then it just popped out out of its mount right here. I might have not put it down in securely. Uh but this is a bit worrisome that's so easy to drop this one. The screen is cracked with the screen protector. So I hope the screen underneath is okay. There's some scuff marks all around the camera now, but those don't seem to cause any real issues. So overall, it's not too bad. Uh, but yeah, it's a bit worrisome how many times I [music] already dropped this camera. [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] Now, let's talk about another issue I have with this DJI Nano camera. And this is a very specific scenario. I was really excited to get this necklace because it meant I could take the little camera here, put it on the necklace right here, and then film whatever I'm doing and get a very natural view without having to have something in my hands to film [music] this scene. So, for example, here, if I want to film my camera, I can turn it on. I can start recording, [music] and I can use it with my two hands without having to hold another camera to show what I'm doing. So, this is a great way to be more immersive when I'm filming these types of videos. But we will see one pretty big problem here. It's if you look at the screen right here, there's going [music] to be these black bars showing up and down on the screen. This is because of the refresh rate of the screen. So basically every 60 seconds or something like that, the cam the screen refreshes on the screen of my phone. And this is capture the camera. [music] We cannot see this with our eyes, but the camera can definitely see it. So it's a pretty easy fix for this one. To fix it, we have to [music] stop recording here. And then we go inside of the settings. We're going to go inside of our exposure settings. We're going to go in the manual settings. And then if we select 128th or 128th of a second or 248th [music] of a second, we should be good and we shouldn't have these lines anymore. So now I've selected this. I'm going to come here. I'm going to start recording again. [music] Open the camera. And now we will see that these lines are completely gone right here. In a day like [music] today, it might not look that bad. There's a little bit more exposures, but when it's a sunny day, it's basically impossible to get a shot using this because the image is completely overblown. The good news is there's a pretty simple solution to this and it's to use some ND filters. I reached out to Freewell because I love collaborating with them and they sent me these [music] two types of filters to test on the camera and see if they can fix the issue. To be very clear, they are not sponsoring this video. They didn't get anything [music] to say about it. But I love working with them because they just send the products. Don't ask anything in exchange and they view the same video as the same time as you do afterwards. Here I have some fixed ND filters. You can basically think of them as sunglasses for your [music] camera and they come in different strengths. So, I have between ND8 and ND64. And on their side here, I have ND plus PL filters. And these are the ones we're going to put on right now. And it's super easy to do if you want to do it. So, you simply come here, open the box. We're going to unscrew the current protection lens on the G Nano. That's a huge feature I really like on the G Nano is if you break this lens, it's very easily replaceable. Here, I'm going to come and take a ND 32. I'm going to screw it on right here with the PL filter. Here we go. And now if we start recording, we're going to see we're going to be able to see the screen here and there's no more of this annoying thing happening. One important thing with PL filter is actually allowed to remove some reflections on [music] the screen too. So if we come here and I open the camera here, we can see that as I turn the filter here, we're going to see more or less the screen and we're going to get more or less of [music] reflections inside of the screen. This is a great feature if you have a PL filter or polarized linear filter is allowing you to remove these reflections that can happen in the water. [music] They can happen on screens. They can happen in windows and lockins place like that and they also have an added benefit. They also boost some colors inside of trees or things like that foliage. So it can be a effect that's pretty nice. Another reason I really like working through well is that [music] the quality of their filters is very high. Filters that are low quality will have vignetting [music] on the sides will also end up having really hard color shifts. But usually these are pretty minimal on filters and this is the case with these filters for the DJI Nano. They have a little bit of nicking in the [music] side. It's not too bad. Yes, when you use a PL filter, it tends to be a little bit more accentuated, and this is normal. This is usually what happens with PL filters. And there's also a very slight color shift, but I think those are not as present or as visible inside of the ND filters. They're really much more of the PL [music] filters. So, that's maybe an advantage to use the ND filters if you don't need the functionality of the polarized filters. But overall, I'm very satisfied with how these are turning out and how they allow me to get these shots that would basically be super annoying to watch and that I filmed by accident when I was reviewing my Google Pixel 10 Pro XL. Um, so I would have really liked having these filters before to fix this issue. One little downside about this lens is actually that you might not have as good stabilization. And this is because by lowering the shutter speed, you're going to have less sharper images. You're going to have motion blur. This is basically when you move your hand really fast or something like that, you're gonna get some blur inside of a shot instead of not having it. And this can make it a lot harder for stabilization to work on the gano camera. This is a little downside to be careful about, but I think that if scenarios like I'm doing, I don't really mind that because I don't need the stabilization to be that intense. Anyways, if you're interested in getting these cameras, I'll have a link down in the description. And also I have an in-depth [music] video for the filters for the DJI Pocket Free camera from Freewell where I explain all of these lenses in much more detail. So, it's a great place to learn if you want to know what are ND filters, what are polarized filters, what are mis filters, and all kinds of things like that that could be useful for these small cameras. [music] Heat. Heat. [music] [music] We made it here at Plas Vandom. It's honestly one of my favorite places all in Pahi. And with the Christmas decorations at night, it looks even better. Heat. Heat. [music] [music] [music] It's currently just about 8:30 a.m. right before sunrise. I don't think there's going to be a sunrise at all. It's super cloudy and there's also rain falling down. Uh, but I'll still do a first stop here at a bakery and then head on to continue filming this video. Get a coffee probably to uh to start the day. Well, hopefully it will stop raining a little bit. It should be like a little bit less bad this afternoon. So, hopefully I get some time to finish this video today. I'm back outside again. I went inside to get a warmer clothes cuz it was a bit cold this morning and then decided to do a little lap because I was really tired. Ended up sleeping for most of the morning. So, I didn't have time to film much this morning. So, I'll continue doing that this afternoon. Hopefully, I'll be using the ND filters for a lot of the shots in this video. So, I'll mark those so you can really see how well they perform in real world scenarios, uh, not with just example shots when I'm using them or going around. Um, so yeah, very excited to see how those results are going to come out inside of this video. [music] Good morning. It's 8:30 a.m. We're out again. It's our last morning here in Perry. Uh, so we're gonna go and do a little bit of shopping, go get some good pastries for breakfast, also get some stuff to bring back to Montreal. So, uh, pretty excited to test a new bakery this morning that we discovered yesterday. It looks really, really, really good. So, really happy to go there. Another issue I have with this little camera is actually that it can get really hot. In the official instructions, they recommend to not use it using your fingers like I'm doing right now. It's not recording, so not become too hot right away. And instead, use this little plastic case to put on top. I don't think it's super dangerous and you' actually burn yourself. But based on the test footage we did, especially when it was in dash cam mode instead of a car, it could become really, really hot uh to the touch. So, it would be very careful, especially have it flipped on yourself, something like that that doesn't overheat. Usually, if you just film for a few seconds, a few minutes, it's not a big issue. But if you're going to be filming for 10, 15, 20 minutes, this camera does become really hot. Another great thing about these filters is actually they work with this protection case. The only little issue is that they're a little bit harder here to turn around, but overall that's not a big issue. pick up. My next little issue that I have with this camera here is not a deal breakaker, but the screen right here is always very yellow. I should contact DJI to ask him about it, know if this is an actual issue with the camera. Uh, but it's very weird because it looks like it's the exact same screen as on the DJI Pocket 3, but the screen on DJI Pocket 3 just seems overall better than the one on this one. [music] I can't [music] remember. [music] A big selling point for me is actually that you have the camera that's separate from the screen and the record button in. This is amazing for all kinds of sports like kaying, running, skiing, and all kinds of things like that where I can have the camera on one place and the controls in another place. There's also a nice big tactile button to start and stop recording. But the only thing I would say is you should put the sound on because sometimes you press the button and it doesn't actually start recording. So you have to be careful to always make sure it's actually recording when you think it's recording. Another reason why I wanted to get this camera was because I wanted something that was more water resistant for situations like today where I can't really be using the J Pocket 3 or some of my other cameras in intense rain like Red. The top of this camera is fully waterproof. [music] I could even go underwater no problem. And the bottom part is splash resistant. So even with a small rain or something like that, [music] there's no issues at all with using this camera. And this is huge for me because some days I would just not be able to film because I didn't have a tool that could support these conditions. And this one up to now had had no issues. I've also dropped it a bunch of times and it still survived those. So overall, it does seem like it's a very resistant camera. Our time in Pari is coming to an end here with Lot Deville in the background. So the city hall in the background here. Uh, it's right about to get dark, so it's time for us to wrap up and go back to Montreal to finish filming this video. [music] [music] It's finally time to ski for the first time this year. There's always a little stress here if I'm going to be okay or not. So, hopefully everything goes well today. Uh, one thing I realized when I was looking at the footage a little bit earlier today and yesterday is that all the shots where I was using the ND filters in Pahi were all very blurry because like I expected with the stabilization, uh, the ND filters and my 150th of a second shutter speed, it made everything a lot blurriier. The thing is that's not the issue of the ND filter. This is because I chose a much lower shutter speed which created motion blur. Uh, in this case, I have the filter on again, and it should look a lot better now because it's able to be automatically go higher for the shutter speed, and stabilization should be able to work better. So, I'll finish filming the day with this filter on so you can see how it looks in better settings. This is the second one. It's been going up to now pretty well. I haven't forgotten how to ski. This is very good. And I forgot how beautiful the landscapes here are in the winter time, especially when they're making snow. And they just have this beautiful white snow on all the trees. Time for me to go for another downhill. Now, for the rest of video, I'll be comparing this DJI Nano camera to other similar cameras to determine if this is still the right camera for me or not. The [snorts] first camera we need to talk about is the most similar one, and it's the Insta 360 Go Ultra. It's a very similar size camera, similar mechanism where the camera can detach [music] from the screen. But one big advantage of the DJ Nano is that the top part and the bottom part use the same quick mounting system. So you can use the same mounts for both of them, which is not the case for the Insta 360 Go Ultra. The Insta 360 Go Ultra also has issues [music] where it doesn't support autofocus and things like that. So in the end, it's a very similar camera to this one with very similar picture quality, but this one has an advantage for the mounting system. Another option we need to talk about is a bigger version of this camera, the DJI Action 6, and it has better image quality. So, in paper, it should fix most of the issues I have with this camera. Now, the issue with the DJI Action 6 is that [music] it doesn't have a screen that can be removed, which is kind of a dealbreaker for me. And also, the size because it cannot have a removable screen, is much bigger, making a little bit less practical to put the camera on places. For example, I wouldn't be able to use the metal mount on the front of my coat to attach the camera. So, for me, I still prefer the DJI Nano camera compared to DJI Axin 6. And this also applies to GoPros or the Insta 360 variants of these different types of action cameras. Now, how did the DJI Nano compare to one of my favorite cameras of all time and the one that I'm using right now, the DJI Pocket 3? I'll say the DJI Pocket 3 just has overall much better image quality. The gimbal allows to have more stable shots without issues like we had here with the ND filters and motion blur. And overall, it's just a better camera. But again, there's two [music] main points that make it uh less best options for some scenarios. The first one is it's just not as rugged. If I dropped it as many times as I dropped this camera, I don't think the DJI Pocket 3 would have resisted. The second one is also it's not resistant to water, things like that. So, a bunch of times when the conditions are not good, I simply cannot take it out. Another thing I really wish that the DJI Pocket 3 improved would be that you could lock the gimbal uh without being able to lock it. It doesn't allow to get some of the shots that I can actually get using the DJI Nano camera that I really want to get. So, that's also a slight disadvantage from the DJI Pocket 3 camera and where the DJI Nano camera is better. Heat. [music] Heat. So now is the final question. Will I keep this DJI Nano camera or replace it by another similarly type camera? The answer is that I think that this is a great action camera. It takes great images. It works perfectly fine as an action camera. is very versatile as it can be separated into different parts, [music] but it's also an action camera and have some of the action cameras issues. So, like most cameras, they're all a tool that is specifically good for certain tasks and not as good for other ones. Considering that one of my biggest issues can be fixed by simply using the free well filters, I [music] really don't think it's worth switching this one for something else. And overall, I do really appreciate how this camera works. [music] I really hope that in the next generation of this camera, they fix the autofocus and add a few other fixes. But overall, I still think this is a great little [music] camera. If you're looking for a compact, easy to use action sport camera. If you're looking for the best image quality, there's other options. But if it's just a good small camera, this is a great one. Now, I want to know what did you think about this DJI Nano action camera? Did you enjoy the footage? Do you think it's a great camera? Is it something you would enjoy using? I'm very curious. Let me know in the comments down below. If you enjoyed this video, please let me know by hitting the like button below and definitely subscribe for more content on photographing, film making. See you in the next one.
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What is this video about?
I picked up the DJI Nano expecting it to fill a specific gap in my gear—a rugged, ultra-compact camera that could detach from its screen and handle conditions where my Pocket 3 simply isn't practical. But after taking it to Paris, I quickly discovered that while it's a solid action camera, it came with some real limitations that made me question whether I'd actually keep it.
The biggest issue was the lack of autofocus. I wanted to use one of those arm rigs you see on YouTube where the camera mounts at the end and points back at you—something that looks really cool and shows your workflow in action. Without autofocus, everything closer than about half a meter stays blurry while the background snaps into focus. It's frustrating because DJI doesn't even mention autofocus in the specs (neither does the Action 6, which does have it), so I didn't catch that before buying.
Then there was the overexposure problem. On sunny days, the footage gets completely blown out unless you manually dial in a faster shutter speed. But in a bright, high-contrast situation like filming a phone screen outdoors, that creates these horrible black scan lines across the footage. The real kicker: Freewell ND and polarized filters solved both of these issues almost completely. I could now shoot in direct sunlight with proper exposure, and the PL filter even removed reflections from screens and windows—something I didn't expect but absolutely needed.
I also ran into overheating (it gets genuinely hot to touch after 15+ minutes of recording), a yellowish screen tint, and dropped the camera about five times in the first day, which honestly says something about how easy it is to fumble. That said, it survived every drop without real damage, and its waterproof top makes it genuinely useful in rain—something my Pocket 3 can't handle.
When I compared it to alternatives like the Insta360 Go Ultra, DJI Action 6, and my beloved Pocket 3, I realized the Nano isn't trying to be a better Pocket 3. It's a purpose-built action camera that's rugged, water-resistant, and separates into modular pieces. Where my Pocket 3 has better stabilization and image quality, the Nano wins on durability and versatility in harsh conditions.
So, do I keep it? Yeah. The autofocus gap and overheating quirks are real, but with the Freewell filters as a standard part of my kit, it actually fits my workflow. It's not the best camera for everything, but it's exactly right for specific jobs—and sometimes that's all a tool needs to be.