RAW vs JPG - dynamic range difference?

[nickcaptures]

Hi everyone,

New owner of a Mavic 4 Pro here. I was testing capturing photos directly into the sun, and for some reason, I'm finding that the JPG photo is giving a much more pleasing representation of direct sun glare than the RAW photo. Any ideas why this would be?

I am already aware that shooting video in D-LOG M is giving superior dynamic range to D-LOG (as this video explains:

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Could the same software / dual ISO trickery be also happening with the Mavic 4 photo mode to make it that shooting JPG is superior to shooting RAW in high dynamic range situations... (like direct sun?). Or am I doing something wrong with my RAW photos?

Any ideas/suggestions would be welcome. I'm baffled.

I'll attach examples here.

The original DNG file is 127MG & the original JPG file is 47MB. So I've put them both into photoshop, reduced by 80%, and exported as jpgs. While this isn't the original files, it's still a representation of the difference. Look at the sun and the range of colour/light outwards from the sun's centre in both images. The DNG seems to have like 3 colours/intensity of light. The JPG has a much more pleasant gradient of colour and light. This is more than just increased saturation...

Any idea what is going on? Thanks so much.

 

[Meta4]

Or am I doing something wrong with my RAW photos?

That's hard to say when you haven't said what you are doing with the dng files ??

 

[anotherlab]

Hi everyone,

New owner of a Mavic 4 Pro here. I was testing capturing photos directly into the sun, and for some reason, I'm finding that the JPG photo is giving a much more pleasing representation of direct sun glare than the RAW photo. Any ideas why this would be?

I am already aware that shooting video in D-LOG M is giving superior dynamic range to D-LOG (as this video explains:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

)

Could the same software / dual ISO trickery be also happening with the Mavic 4 photo mode to make it that shooting JPG is superior to shooting RAW in high dynamic range situations... (like direct sun?). Or am I doing something wrong with my RAW photos?

Any ideas/suggestions would be welcome. I'm baffled.

I'll attach examples here.

The original DNG file is 127MG & the original JPG file is 47MB. So I've put them both into photoshop, reduced by 80%, and exported as jpgs. While this isn't the original files, it's still a representation of the difference. Look at the sun and the range of colour/light outwards from the sun's centre in both images. The DNG seems to have like 3 colours/intensity of light. The JPG has a much more pleasant gradient of colour and light. This is more than just increased saturation...

Any idea what is going on? Thanks so much.

If you imported the RAW image into Photoshop and the only change that you made was to scale it down, then you are not getting any benefit of the RAW format. The RAW file is exactly what the file name suggests: it's the raw sensor data captured by the camera - not a "digital negative".

RAW files capture more data (higher bit depth, wider dynamic range, better color information). These advantages allow for better adjustments to exposure, white balance, shadows/highlights, and color grading without degrading quality. This gives you greater control over recovering highlights or lifting shadows. FWIW, Lightroom has a better workflow for working with RAW images than Photoshop.

The camera on your drone is making adjustments to the RAW file data when it creates the JPG. It's always shooting RAW, you just have a setting to save the RAW file in addition to the JPG was created from the RAW data.