The jpg files shows details what the DNG files not, and those details are not possible to get back from DNG files. I made test shots in the sunset and the jpg files shows the waves and other details near to the Sun meanwhile the DNG file is totaly burned out on this part of the photo and it is not possible to get back neither in PS neither in Capture One 23. It is a theory that the Mavic 3 Classic saves compressed DNG files and the drone makes the jpg files from the uncompressed?
Please write the solution because these DNG files are useless now.

Link to the DNG and jpg files:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1KAeBkgG94HR68tSIRgWDDwoTXbbmECRQ?usp=sharing

This looks strange indeed.
The exif looks identical, but still the DNG has less information in the sky.

Weird as hell, is anyone else experiencing the same?

It's not a mystery why the dng file has no detail in the burnt out area.
You can recover detail in shadows but not from completely burnt out, over-exposed areas.
Your exposure settings are all wrong for that shot.
You shot towards the full glare of the sun reflected off water at f2.8 and ISO 400.
You need to exercise a little more control over your camera settings rather than just leaving everything to the camera to choose.

The mystery is how the jpg file was able to retain detail there.

Hi, Blaise. Thank you for reaching out and we're sorry for the inconvenience. RAW (DNG) photos will retain more details for later adjustments, and you can adjust denoising and sharpening according to your demand. Unadjusted RAW photos may look blurry than JPG photos, but after adjustment (such as Photoshop and other image editing software like what you have mentioned), the picture quality can exceed JPG. So that means DNG format images need to do post-processing work manually. Are those photos from the link you provided above both original? Please let us know. Thank you for your cooperation.

DJI Gamora Posted at 11-15 18:24
Hi, Blaise. Thank you for reaching out and we're sorry for the inconvenience. RAW (DNG) photos will retain more details for later adjustments, and you can adjust denoising and sharpening according to your demand. Unadjusted RAW photos may look blurry than JPG photos, but after adjustment (such as Photoshop and other image editing software like what you have mentioned), the picture quality can exceed JPG. So that means DNG format images need to do post-processing work manually. Are those photos from the link you provided above both original? Please let us know. Thank you for your cooperation.

You've missed the point.
His dng file doesn't show the detail even after post processing,
But the jpg file does.

And yes ... his image files are original.

Of course I know how to make photos with correct exposure and yes I know how to postprocess a raw file. You can check some of my photos on my insta: blaise_carver
The point is that how is it possible that on Mavic 3 Classic the jpg has details from overexposed part of picture but it can not get back with any software from its dng file? It means that or the dng is heavily compressed or the jpg file is not made from that dng.
Please answer to this. I have the mavic 2 pro as well which has not this issue. I have landscape photographer friend who has Mavic 3 mini pro and he has not got this issue. So please answer to my above question and please look for the solution.

Both files are original.

as some people in chinese forum talks, "drone without bugs, is bad drone"
sorry for that kind of humor but it still semiproduct even after 1 year of launch


I highly recommend to read their forum about mavic 3 https://bbs.dji.com/forum.php?mod=forumdisplay&fid=84&filter=typeid&typeid=496 and mavic 3 classic https://bbs.dji.com/forum.php?mod=forumdisplay&fid=84&filter=typeid&typeid=611
using google translate

Labroides Posted at 11-15 14:03
It's not a mystery why the dng file has no detail in the burnt out area.
You can recover detail in shadows but not from completely burnt out, over-exposed areas.
Your exposure settings are all wrong for that shot.

This picture was part of a test shot. I know how to expose correctly. And yes, you got the point: How can the jpg have more details on some part than the dng?

Blaise Posted at 11-16 01:31
This picture was part of a test shot. I know how to expose correctly. And yes, you got the point: How can the jpg have more details on some part than the dng?

I don't know how the jpg has kept detail where it's been burnt out.
But try a real test with real exposure settings and see if the jpg still has more detail.

The JPG looks very much like a HDR processed image. Like several exposures were merged together by the drone. The dynamic range in the scene is too large for a single exposure, as the DNG shows.

I was also surprised when I compared JPG and DNG from the Mavic 3 Classic. The DNG files are OK in their own right. The dynamic range is what you would expect from a 12 bit mFT RAW file. The dynamic range of the JPGs is surprisingly high. I think DJI is using computational photography here, as is done with modern smartphones. You only press the shutter button once, but the camera takes a whole series of individual images, which are then internally computed into one image.

I'm surprised on your opinion. The adobe camera raw wrote that the dng file is an 8 bit file!

Blaise Posted at 11-16 05:39
I'm surprised on your opinion. The adobe camera raw wrote that the dng file is an 8 bit file!

In ACR you can choose to save the raw-file as an 8-bit or 16-bit tiff-file. I opened your DNG in Camera Raw and had the choice between 8 or 16 bit.
But do not confuse dynamic range and colour depth, they are different things. Remember that a camera sensor is an analogue device, capturing light values, not bits.

You could read this, a bit down is explained bit depth versus dynamic range.
https://www.lifeafterphotoshop.com/bits-and-bit-depth-explained/

Blaise Posted at 11-16 05:39
I'm surprised on your opinion. The adobe camera raw wrote that the dng file is an 8 bit file!

dji's DNG files are 16 bit, but the real color-depth of mavic 3 DNGs is 12 bit
they add zero data to fillfull all range upto 16 bit, and set flags in 0 and 65536 ranges

Took your DNG file into LR and the overexposed area is indeed irrecoverable. What interests me is that if you compare the drone-produced JPG to LR-produced JPG, you will notice that the drone-produced JPG is a little more cropped compared to the LR-produced JPG. You will also notice a tiny little fluctuation in the Longitude readings between your DNG and JPG under the GPS tab of file properties. Below attached is my LR edit on your DNG.

ArcticPhoto Posted at 11-16 06:18
In ACR you can choose to save the raw-file as an 8-bit or 16-bit tiff-file. I opened your DNG in Camera Raw and had the choice between 8 or 16 bit.
But do not confuse dynamic range and colour depth, they are different things. Remember that a camera sensor is an analogue device, capturing light values, not bits.

I know that bit depth and dynamic range are different things. You mentioned that the file is 12 bit and I only answered that as I see it writes 8 bit.

I know that bit depth and dynamic range are different things. You mentioned that the file is 12 bit and I only answered that as I see it writes 8 bit.

You can open it as 16-bit in Camera Raw, then you will not lose data from the original 12-bit dng file.
Here is your image opened in  Camera Raw, ready to be saved as a 16-bit file.

Blaise Posted at 11-16 05:39
I'm surprised on your opinion. The adobe camera raw wrote that the dng file is an 8 bit file!

The mFT sensor in the drone delivers 12 bits. If you will, that is what is available in terms of data. Standardized graphics file formats support 8, 16 or even 32 bits, for example.

Most system cameras produce RAW files with 14 bits and a few really professional camera bodies (e.g. Fujifilm GFX medium format) even 16 bits.

For the Mavic 3 Classic, DJI also specifies 12 bit DNG RAW.

In drone photography, you often have to deal with a very high contrast range. It is therefore not a bad idea to use AE bracketing with 5 RAW images (+/- 0.7 EV). These can be easily merged into HDR files in Adobe LR if needed. And then you have very good source material. And to come back to the original question: I suspect that more or less with such a procedure the JPG are generated. It just happens fully automatically.

Fulmo Posted at 11-16 08:54
The mFT sensor in the drone delivers 12 bits. If you will, that is what is available in terms of data. Standardized graphics file formats support 8, 16 or even 32 bits, for example.

Most system cameras produce RAW files with 14 bits and a few really professional camera bodies (e.g. Fujifilm GFX medium format) even 16 bits.

But it is important to realize that higher bit depth from the sensor not necesserily means increased dynamic range. The bit depth  is not an indication of the range of tones the camera has captured, but the resolution used to distinguish between these tones.

ArcticPhoto Posted at 11-16 09:22
But it is important to realize that higher bit depth from the sensor not necesserily means increased dynamic range. The bit depth  is not an indication of the range of tones the camera has captured, but the resolution used to distinguish between these tones.

Exactly! The 12 bits are first only a purely technical specification. To put it somewhat unprofessionally, the decisive factor is what the camera actually stores in the 12-bit file. Then many things play a role. Sensor, ISO, internal image processing, lens, exposure, aperture, etc.

So to go back to my original question: you guess that the Mavic 3 Classic makes always an expo bracketing for creating the jpg file even if the user didn't choose that photo mode. It does only to create a high dynamic range jpg file, and then deletes the made dng files except one. It sounds very unlikely to me.

If there would be an option to shoot hdr jpg+raw then I could imagine it. But it is not there as I know.

Blaise Posted at 11-16 09:50
So to go back to my original question: you guess that the Mavic 3 Classic makes always an expo bracketing for creating the jpg file even if the user didn't choose that photo mode. It does only to create a high dynamic range jpg file, and then deletes the made dng files except one. It sounds very unlikely to me.

You are sure that you did not shoot that photo in HDR-mode?
I ask because the jpg has that typical "HDR-look". But I agree it is unlikely that the drone does that processing automatic without option to disable it.

It would be interesting to see a JPG and a DNG from a different scene with much less contrast.

dreamtuner Posted at 11-16 06:53
Took your DNG file into LR and the overexposed area is indeed irrecoverable. What interests me is that if you compare the drone-produced JPG to LR-produced JPG, you will notice that the drone-produced JPG is a little more cropped compared to the LR-produced JPG. You will also notice a tiny little fluctuation in the Longitude readings between your DNG and JPG under the GPS tab of file properties. Below attached is my LR edit on your DNG. [view_image]

You will also notice a tiny little fluctuation in the Longitude readings between your DNG and JPG under the GPS tab of file properties.
Really ??    Look again

Hello, there. Sorry for your inconvenience. We consulted with our engineers. When you shot in an appropriate condition,  choose Auto mode, then the JPG photo will be Multi-frame HDR enhanced. That's the reason why the JPG photo seems to have more details than a DNG one.

Please write the solution because these DNG files are useless now.
It sounds like the only thing wrong with the dng file is that you shot a scene with too much contrast using inappropriate settings.
Shoot using proper exposure settings and see how they look.

Hello, It explains what I experienced. So it is an Auto HDR. It can be a feature to those who don't want to work with DNG files. I think you should advertise it. Thanks for the info.

Labroides Posted at 11-17 05:35
Please write the solution because these DNG files are useless now.
It sounds like the only thing wrong with the dng file is that you shot a scene with too much contrast using inappropriate settings.
Shoot using proper exposure settings and see how they look.

Yes, I always shoot with proper exposure setting and if needs with expo bracketing etc. This was the first, test flight where I tested the abilities of the drone and its camera. I was not surprised that the DNG file was overexposed making a panorama when it turned towards to the Sun, but I did not understand how can the DNG be overexposed when the JPG file is not. But now we got the answer above.

DJI Wanda Posted at 11-17 05:25
Hello, there. Sorry for your inconvenience. We consulted with our engineers. When you shot in an appropriate condition,  choose Auto mode, then the JPG photo will be Multi-frame HDR enhanced. That's the reason why the JPG photo seems to have more details than a DNG one.

Thanks, interesting information!

DJI Wanda Posted at 11-17 05:25
Hello, there. Sorry for your inconvenience. We consulted with our engineers. When you shot in an appropriate condition,  choose Auto mode, then the JPG photo will be Multi-frame HDR enhanced. That's the reason why the JPG photo seems to have more details than a DNG one.

I wonder if that means that the Auto mode you mention will closely equal a HDR photo taken with a 5 shot AEB in .dng? It would be pointless of course, because the AEB should give you a lot more room for editing, still it would be interesting to see a comparison.

ArcticPhoto Posted at 11-17 07:06
Thanks, interesting information!

You are most welcome.

Hrodnand Posted at 11-18 06:54
I wonder if that means that the Auto mode you mention will closely equal a HDR photo taken with a 5 shot AEB in .dng? It would be pointless of course, because the AEB should give you a lot more room for editing, still it would be interesting to see a comparison.

I will confirm with our engineers first.

Hrodnand Posted at 11-18 06:54
I wonder if that means that the Auto mode you mention will closely equal a HDR photo taken with a 5 shot AEB in .dng? It would be pointless of course, because the AEB should give you a lot more room for editing, still it would be interesting to see a comparison.

AE bracketing with DNG files gives more latitude than an (auto) JPG from the camera offers. Anyway, that's my experience. The JPG offers - as is the case with JPGs - little editing margin. The camera also sharpened the JPGs relatively strongly. For people who can't or don't want to edit the images further, that's OK. For people who can and want to, it's not good. My default setting for photos is AE bracketing 5 / +/- 0.7 EV as DNG. Storage space on the card costs practically nothing. Whether I use the 5 individual shots afterwards for an HDR or not, I can then decide later at my leisure. What is stupid is that you can not adjust the bracketing interval. 0.7 EV is not much. 1 or better 2 EV as another option would be better.