so ive been flying my mini 3 for about 4 months now and honestly the video looks pretty decent but my photos keep coming out really washed out and overexposed whenever im shooting in the middle of the day. i know the obvious answer is probably dont fly at noon but sometimes thats just when i have time to go out.

im shooting in auto mode mostly which is probably the first problem lol. i tried dropping the EV compensation down to like -1 or -2 and that helps a bit but the colors still look kinda flat and lifeless compared to what i see other people posting. im shooting jpeg right now too, not raw, because i didnt really bother with editing before but maybe thats the issue? idk where to even start honestly. any tips would be really appreciated, ive watched a ton of youtube videos but they all seem to be selling something

yeah switch to raw immediately, that alone will change your life honestly. jpeg throws away so much information and when you're shooting in harsh midday light you need every bit of dynamic range you can get. once you're in raw you can pull back the highlights in lightroom or even just the free adobe app on your phone and suddenly you'll see all that detail hiding in the blown out sky.

also try using AEB if your drone supports it ? it brackets three exposures automatically so you've got options when you're editing. the other thing i do in bright sun is bump my shutter speed way up and use ND filters to keep things balanced. the ND16 or ND64 can make a huge difference in flattening out that harsh overhead light. takes some trial and error but once it clicks you'll wonder why you waited so long to figure it out.

same thing happened to me when i started out. honestly the golden hour thing is a cliche for a reason, like an hour after sunrise or before sunset the light just does most of the work for you and even auto mode photos look pretty good. i know you said timing is tough but even like 7am on a weekend morning and everything looks completely different.