ISO range in Dlog M only 800 max?

[Filmarik]

ISO range question. My M3P when shooting in D-log M and Auto ISO, the ISO only goes to max 800 and not 1600 as is the max range in Manual ISO mode. Anyone else seeing this?

 

[Filmarik]

ISO range question. My M3P when shooting in D-log M and Auto ISO, the ISO only goes to max 800 and not 1600 as is the max range in Manual ISO mode. Anyone else seeing this?

I contacted DJI Tech Support about this and asked why in Auto ISO mode the ISO range is limited to max 800 whereas the max in Manual ISO mode is 1600. This is when shooting video in D-Log M. I received this reply. I was like what??
Quote:
As consulted by the relevant team, in Auto mode on DJI Mavic 3 Pro, the ISO setting cannot be manually adjusted. This is because in Auto mode, settings like ISO are automatically controlled by the camera to optimize image quality based on current lighting conditions. This is all applied to any camera devices that for Auto Mode, the camera settings can not be adjusted.

In case you have additional questions please know that I'm just an email away.

Thank you for choosing DJI. Goodbye and have a nice day!

Best regards,

Megan
Technical Support Representative
DJI Technical Support

 

[GadgetGuy]

I contacted DJI Tech Support about this and asked why in Auto ISO mode the ISO range is limited to max 800 whereas the max in Manual ISO mode is 1600. This is when shooting video in D-Log M. I received this reply. I was like what??
Quote:
As consulted by the relevant team, in Auto mode on DJI Mavic 3 Pro, the ISO setting cannot be manually adjusted. This is because in Auto mode, settings like ISO are automatically controlled by the camera to optimize image quality based on current lighting conditions. This is all applied to any camera devices that for Auto Mode, the camera settings can not be adjusted.

In case you have additional questions please know that I'm just an email away.

Thank you for choosing DJI. Goodbye and have a nice day!

Best regards,

Megan
Technical Support Representative
DJI Technical Support

As usual, Megan's "relevant team" is completely clueless, likely an AI chatbot!
But she is only an email away! LOL!

 

[Filmarik]

As usual, Megan's "relevant team" is completely clueless, likely an AI chatbot!
But she is only an email away! LOL!

What makes it even worse is that they sent me the same answer 4 times telling me over and over again that in Auto ISO mode the camera is setting the ISO value and not the operator and therefore I can not set it to 1600. I keep telling them that in Auto mode it ever only goes to 800 max, no matter how dark the scene is. But they are not answering my question why is in Auto ISO the range limitted to ISO 800 max.
They are totally hopeless!!!

 

[GadgetGuy]

What makes it even worse is that they sent me the same answer 4 times telling me over and over again that in Auto ISO mode the camera is setting the ISO value and not the operator and therefore I can not set it to 1600. I keep telling them that in Auto mode it ever only goes to 800 max, no matter how dark the scene is. But they are not answering my question why is in Auto ISO the range limitted to ISO 800 max.
They are totally hopeless!!!

They are not even human, which is why the AI response is the same boilerplate every time..

 

[Filmarik]

They are not even human, which is why the AI response is the same boilerplate every time..

Yeah, it certainly looks like it. Sign of the era, I suppose. We better start getting used to this crap

 

[GadgetGuy]

Yeah, it certainly looks like it. Sign of the era, I suppose. We better start getting used to this crap

As soon as they mention the term "relevant team" I know I am wasting my time. When you ask them who the relevant team is, they have no clue! At best, they will transcribe their misinterpretation of what you said and send it to someone, who is likely only their supervisor. They will refuse to provide you with a copy of what they are relaying to the "relevant team," citing privacy, but it is really because they know what they wrote doesn't remotely resemble what you told them! It's not just DJI. It's Amazon, it's the cable company, it's your bank, your pharmacy, your credit card company. 99% of them outsource customer service and tech support to foreigners working from home who barely understand English, let alone speak it. Good luck communicating with them, assuming they are even human, and not just another AI chatbot! Welcome to the future! It's now!

 

[Filmarik]

As soon as they mention the term "relevant team" I know I am wasting my time. When you ask them who the relevant team is, they have no clue! At best, they will transcribe their misinterpretation of what you said and send it to someone, who is likely only their supervisor. They will refuse to provide you with a copy of what they are relaying to the "relevant team," citing privacy, but it is really because they know what they wrote doesn't remotely resemble what you told them! It's not just DJI. It's Amazon, it's the cable company, it's your bank, your pharmacy, your credit card company. 99% of them outsource customer service and tech support to foreigners working from home who barely understand English, let alone speak it Good luck communicating with them, assuming they are even human, and not just another AI chatbot! Welcome to the future! It's now!

Ok, back to my question. Do you by any chance might know why this actually is the case? Could that have something to do with the use of the dual gain to enhance dynamic range when shooting in D-Log M as discussed in the M4P forum? Maybe this "fusion" enhacement works on M3P too?? I assume it was a deliberate act to reduce max ISO to 800. I was hoping to learn from DJI what was behind that decision.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Ok, back to my question. Do you by any chance might know why this actually is the case? Could that have something to do with the use of the dual gain to enhance dynamic range when shooting in D-Log M as discussed in the M4P forum? Maybe this "fusion" enhacement works on M3P too?? I assume it was a deliberate act to reduce max ISO to 800. I was hoping to learn from DJI what was behind that decision.

If I recall correctly, D-Log had a restriction of a lowest ISO setting of 400 which frustrated some users, despite ISO 100 being the lowest sensor setting. D-Log M auto ISO likely also has an optimized ISO range that requires a lower ISO limit than manual. I am sure it is intentional, rather than an old bug. No one you are likely able to reach at DJI will be able to accurately explain exactly why the DJI engineers made that decision, but you can be assured that it was undoubtedly made for improved results. ISO 1600 likely generates too much noise for the D-Log M auto ISO processing, so they wisely limit it to ISO 800.

 

[Filmarik]

If I recall correctly, D-Log had a restriction of a lowest ISO setting of 400 which frustrated some users, despite ISO 100 being the lowest sensor setting. D-Log M auto ISO likely also has an optimized ISO range that requires a lower ISO limit than manual. I am sure it is intentional, rather than an old bug. No one you are likely able to reach at DJI will be able to accurately explain exactly why the DJI engineers made that decision, but you can be assured that it was undoubtedly made for improved results. ISO 1600 likely generates too much noise for the D-Log M auto ISO processing, so they wisely limit it to ISO 800.

Agree. In the meantime I have done some very basic testing and compared D-Log M in Auto ISO with D-Log. It was an overcast day so not too contrasty scene but sky was very bright against the dark foreground. D-log M with Auto ISO was surprisingly cleanest in the shadows. It also held highlights in the sky well and after tweaking it came up on top in overal IQ. It was interestingly even marginally cleaner in shadows than D-Log M shot with Manual ISO set to the 400 ISO (Auto ISO returned 450 ISO.) There must be something going on with the Auto ISO and D-Log M even in Mavic 3 Pro, it seems