so ive been flying my mini 3 pro for about 6 months now and i feel like im getting the hang of the actual flying part but my photos still look kind of amateur compared to what i see other people posting. the biggest thing bugging me is that whenever i shoot in bright conditions ? like midday sun over water or open fields ? the sky goes completely white and i lose all the cloud detail. im shooting in auto right now which is probably the problem but every time i try to switch to manual i get confused about where to even start.

someone in another thread mentioned shooting in D-Log but i tried it once and everything looked so washed out i thought i broke something lol. do i need to learn to edit properly before that even makes sense? also does the time of day actually matter as much as people say or is that just a golden hour obsession thing

the highlights blowing out is almost definitely an exposure issue ? in auto mode the camera is trying to expose for the whole scene and it usually sacrifices the sky to get the ground looking right. easiest quick fix without going full manual is to use exposure compensation and dial it down like -0.7 or -1 stop when you have a bright sky in frame. its not perfect but way better than auto with no adjustment.

and yeah D-Log will look terrible straight out of camera, thats the point ? its a flat profile that preserves way more dynamic range so you have more to work with in post. but if youre not editing much yet it might be more headache than its worth. id honestly suggest just shooting in the normal color profile but with exposure comp until you get comfortable, then graduate to log once you actually enjoy spending time in lightroom or wherever you edit. the time of day thing is real though, like genuinely real ? shooting at noon is just fighting the light the whole time

had the exact same problem when i started, honestly the blown highlights thing drove me crazy for weeks. what helped me was just setting a custom style with contrast pulled down a bit and then slightly underexposing. not super technical but it gave me way more to recover in editing without fully committing to log footage.

also golden hour isnt just hype ? i shot the same beach at noon and then again like 45 mins before sunset and the difference was kind of embarrassing honestly. the light just does the work for you