so ive been flying my mini 3 pro for about 6 months now and honestly the footage and photos are fine but theyre just... not popping the way i see other peoples shots do. i shoot in auto most of the time which i know is probably the issue but every time i try to go manual i end up with something way too dark or completely blown out in the sky

been reading about shooting in d-log or flat profiles but honestly it sounds like a lot of extra work in post and im not even sure my editing software can handle it properly. does it actually make that big of a difference or am i overthinking this and the real issue is just my composition or time of day or something

for context im mostly shooting landscape stuff, coastal areas, some forests. not video, mainly stills

for stills on the mini 3 i honestly wouldnt bother with d-log, thats more of a video thing anyway. what you want to do is shoot raw and just leave the jpeg as a reference. the raw files have way more dynamic range to work with especially when you have a bright sky and darker ground which is basically every landscape shot ever

the other thing that helped me a ton was just being obsessive about golden hour. like not just sunrise or sunset but that specific 20-30 minutes where the light is low and warm and the shadows are long. auto mode actually handles that pretty decently because the dynamic range gap isnt as extreme. mid afternoon with sun straight overhead is where auto really falls apart because the sky and ground are so different in brightness

once you start shooting raw and pulling shots into lightroom you'll see what i mean, there's a lot more there than the jpeg shows you

yeah im pretty much in the same boat as you lol, just started a couple months ago. someone in another thread told me to try dialing in -0.3 or -0.7 exposure compensation when shooting anything with sky in it so the clouds dont blow out and then you can lift the shadows in editing. been trying that and its helped a bit but im still figuring it out honestly