I am having a problem with the RAW images from my Mavic 3 Cine and would appreciate your analysis and advice. As the attached sample shows, there is strong “rainbow” horizontal banding in my DNG images.

Some brief background:

1. I purchased a Mavic 3 Cine in June, 2022. All of its photo and video functions were normal, including RAW files that were rendered in the DNG format. I’ll call that drone “Mavic #1.”

2. As of February 27, 2023 all of the photo and video functions were still normal.

3. However, beginning with a project on March 2, 2023 all DNG files from Mavic #1 had the banding you see in the sample.

4. At that point, I suspected that Mavic #1 might be suffering a hardware failure. So I exchanged Mavic #1 for a new Mavic under the DJI Care Refresh program. I’ll call that drone Mavic #2.

5. Unfortunately, Mavic #2 produced exactly the same banding.

6. The next step in my troubleshooting was to test different RAW conversion engines. (I have an Apple Studio computer, which uses the Apple RAW converter.) My normal image processing program is Affinity Photo, which allows you to switch between the Apple RAW converter and the Serif RAW converter.

7. When I switched to the Serif converter, the banding disappeared. I also uploaded a test image to an on-line RAW conversion website, and the banding disappeared in that case, too.

8. For a number of reasons, it’s inconvenient to use a non-Apple RAW converter on an Apple computer. I’d like the Apple engine to work the same way it did before March, 2023.

9. The Apple RAW converter is not causing problems for DNG files produced by other devices. The only problematic files are those produced by my Mavic 3.

10. In the time period beginning in February, 2023 to the present, there have been several firmware updates by DJI and MacOS updates by Apple. Could the problem have been created by these updates?

11. Has anyone else seem this problem? Any ideas about how to correct it? Thanks for your help!

Hey there, this is an issue caused by MacOS and its recent update(s). Apparently DJI is working with Apple to fix this. Hang in there, you're not alone

Hello! Do not worry. That should not be the fault of your drone. Mine was fine too and then with the new Mac OS release it was suddenly showing that banding. but only in Quicklook. When you open the file in Photoshop, Lightroom or any other raw converter, it should be fine, at least in my case. Did you test that? Mine was only displaying that banding within quicklook preview (spacebar in finder) from Mac OS.

fhoelterhoff Posted at 5-9 08:40
Hello! Do not worry.  That should not be the fault of your drone. Mine was fine too and then with the new Mac OS release it was suddenly showing that banding. but only in Quicklook. When you open the file in Photoshop, Lightroom or any other raw converter, it should be fine, at least in my case. Did you test that? Mine was only displaying that banding within quicklook preview (spacebar in finder) from Mac OS.

Thanks for your helpful response. I'll assume that the problem lies with Apple's OS updates, rather than DJI's updates. I'll just mention that I'm one of those unusual people who enjoys using alternatives to Adobe. For example, I use ApolloOne and RAWPower for digital asset management, and Affinity Photo for image processing. From time to time, Apple's own Photos program is also useful. They all use Apple's RAW engine (although, as I mentioned, Affinity allows you to switch to Serif's own RAW engine).

Fingers crossed that Apple squashes this bug soon!

I did just download the sample files from the Mavic 3 Pro from the DJI website and guess what, banding! But interestingly only the DNGs from the Hasselblad camera, the ones from the 3x and 7x Tele are displayed just fine. I think it maybe has something to do with the Hasselblad color profile which Mac OS does not display correctly at the moment. But I think you can relax, when even the original DJI sample files show that banding within Mac OS

I think it is good to use alternatives to Adobe, they shall feel the competition

I have to correct myself a little bit, the 3x and 7x times also show that banding within Mac OS Quicklook, but quite less than the Hasselblad. Anyway, I think Apple will fix that, it worked before, it hopefully will work correctly again

To reiterate in another manner, any program that uses Apple’s RAW conversion will show this banding; it was due to a recent Mac OS update as well as a recent iOS update. The only current solution is to not update (if you haven’t already) your Mac or iOS software or use a program that doesn’t rely on Apple’s raw processing like any of the Adobe Programs as well as many others.

Hi, fans3e632489. Thank you for your feedback. We have reported this issue to the DJI engineers. It occurs when previewing DNG photos after the macOS/iOS system version has been updated. The DJI engineers are actively communicating with Apple Inc. to seek a solution. We recommend viewing or editing the original footage with Photoshop or Lightroom temporarily. We apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for your understanding and support.

Meanwhile I sent my Mavic 3 in to DJI thinking something was wrong with the camera and I’m stuck without a drone and normally I would have a back up for work but not this time! send it back DJI