Good Morning

I flew now a month in Iceland and came home with a tons of nice footage. Now on the editing table I'm a bit struggling in getting the most out of my footage. Maybe I'm got too much used to high dynamic range pictures from my full format SLR pictures but it seems all not too easy. Especially to preseve details in clouds by setting highlights down it also dramatically reduces light and saturation also in mid- and low toned areas. It's hard to get a bright image with well preserved structures in clouds or white water areas.

I was setting my mavic air to use D-Cinelike at the begin of the journey but recently I doubted whether it maybe accidently switched off. I was not checking it before each flight.

Is there a way to see if recorded footage was done with D-Cinelike?

Thanks
Philipp

Not sure about the air but the biggest issue is simply that the camera has terrible dynamic range so you're always going to struggle to pull back highlights.  Shooting underexposed a bit helps post processing.  The air has D-log mode but on the MP theres very little evidence it actually helps at all with processing or range (and due to a bug applies this to raw images and under exposes them to boot).  I dont think you can tell afterwards what something was shot with - the IPTC doesnt seem to record it on mine.

You'll know right away if it's shot in D-log difference with D-Cinelike is tremendous

Ok Ok Ok, I was aware that I can't expect too much from the smaller sensor but that its so much more worse made me curious wether maybe i accidently switched of D-CineLike

PhilippPfneisl Posted at 2018-7-25 01:16
Ok Ok Ok, I was aware that I can't expect too much from the smaller sensor but that its so much more worse made me curious wether maybe i accidently switched of D-CineLike

Just as a side information. I'm working with Premiere Pro for color grading.

PhilippPfneisl Posted at 2018-7-25 01:16
Ok Ok Ok, I was aware that I can't expect too much from the smaller sensor but that its so much more worse made me curious wether maybe i accidently switched of D-CineLike

If you treat the Mavic camera as a 2015 cellphone equivalent you'll be about right.
Obviously sensor size has absolutely nothing to do with dynamic range (despite whats stated above) the mavic just has a cheap, low end sensor.
So you need to work within that - make use of the histogram and zebra stripes and underexpose to the extent nothing is burning out.  Make sure the ISO never goes above 100 and you can pull up the shadows without too much noise.
Does the Air have D-Log?  If it does, you can try it.  In theory more DR to play with, in reality on the MP at least in tests people have reported near no difference (and DJI havent released the official LUT for it which doesnt help).
Be aware though if you do use D-Log, if the Air has the same bug as the MP it'll screw up every still shot by under exposing whenever its selected so do some tests.

Thanks for the hints. I'm making use of all of this and especially because of my photography background I know to use histogram to always slightly underexpose the picture to don't burn out the highlights. That works perfrectly with SLRs but it seemed this is very limited with the drones.

But maybe not really because I also added some sequences "timelapse" from my SLR recorded from hundreds of full res images (around 14,5 dynamic range) and premiere also ruins the mids once I touch the highs.