so ive been flying for about 8 months now and i feel like my footage is technically fine but it just looks... dull? like everything is properly exposed and in focus but compared to the stuff i see other people posting it just feels lifeless. im shooting on a mini 3 pro if that matters.

i think part of it is my camera settings, im mostly leaving it on auto everything which i know is probably the issue but every time i try to mess with manual settings i either blow out the sky or lose all the shadow detail. i did try shooting in d-log m a few times but honestly the flat footage looks even worse to me, maybe im not editing it right after?

also i never really know where to put the horizon in the frame. i just kind of center it and that feels wrong but i dont know what else to do. any advice from people who've actually figured this out would be great, even just pointing me toward what to google would help

the d-log m thing is absolutely your issue i think. you cant just drop that footage in your timeline and expect it to look good, it needs a LUT applied first and then you grade from there. there are free ones made specifically for the mini 3 pro, just search for that and you'll find a bunch. once you get the hang of the base correction it starts to make sense pretty fast.

for the horizon thing, try putting it in the lower third when you've got interesting sky or clouds, and upper third when the ground is the interesting part. sounds basic but it really does change how a shot reads. also if you're not already using an ND filter for stuff shot in the middle of the day that's going to help a lot with making movement look more cinematic and less like a security camera.

honestly same boat as you like 6 months ago and what changed everything for me was just shooting during golden hour. like i know everyone says it but i didnt really believe it until i went out at 6am one time and the shots looked completely different without changing anything else. the light does so much of the work for you