so ive been flying my mini 3 pro for about 4 months now and honestly the video looks decent but my photos keep coming out super washed out whenever i shoot in the middle of the day. i shoot in auto most of the time which i know is probably the problem but every time i switch to manual i get confused and end up with something even worse

i tried dropping the exposure compensation to like -1 or -2 and that helped a little but the shadows go really dark and i lose detail in the trees and stuff. someone at my local club mentioned shooting in D-Log but i dont even know if thats a photo thing or just for video. mostly shooting landscapes and some real estate stuff for a friend who asked me to help out

any tips would be really appreciated, been going through youtube tutorials but they kind of contradict each other

the washed out thing in bright midday sun is honestly just the conditions working against you more than your settings. the light is super harsh and flat around noon and even the best camera struggles with it. if you can, try shooting in the golden hour window ? like an hour after sunrise or before sunset. the dynamic range you get in that light is way more forgiving and your photos will look so much better without changing a single setting

that said, for the manual stuff ? yeah shoot in raw if you arent already. D-Log is a video color profile so dont worry about that for stills. with raw files you can recover a lot of those blown highlights in lightroom after the fact. i usually set my ISO to 100, use auto shutter unless its windy, and then just adjust exposure from there. for real estate work you really want the sky to look good so slightly underexpose and then lift the shadows in post, works way better than trying to nail it in camera

same boat here a few months ago honestly. the thing that clicked for me was learning about the histogram instead of just looking at the preview screen on my phone ? the screen makes everything look fine but the histogram shows you whats actually clipping. took me a while to get used to reading it but now i cant fly without checking it