this has been bugging me for a while. i go out, get what i think is a really solid shot compositionally, bring it into lightroom, do my edits and it looks decent i guess. then i see someone elses aerial photo of basically the same type of scene and it just pops way more. im using the air 2s so its not a sensor issue i dont think. is it just heavy editing or am i missing something fundamental about how people are processing these

honestly a lot of what you're seeing on instagram is pretty aggressively edited, like more than people would admit. dehaze slider cranked, clarity up, sometimes texture too. plus shooting in the right light makes a massive difference, like the same location at noon vs 20 minutes before sunset is almost a different photo. if youre shooting midday thats probably more of the issue than anything in post

the air 2s is a great camera so yeah its not the gear. i went through the same thing and what actually helped me was just looking at before/afters from people who share their edits, not just the final result. some of those 'natural looking' photos have like 40 adjustments in them, they just know how to make it not look overdone. also are you shooting raw? if youre doing jpegs out of camera you're kind of starting behind already