RAW vs JPG - dynamic range difference?

nickcaptures · 2025-07-18T08:23:26-0400

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: )

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 · 2025-07-18T09:02:10-0400

nickcaptures said:
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 · 2025-07-18T09:19:05-0400

nickcaptures said:
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.

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.

Bussty · 2025-07-18T17:24:30-0400

There has been a post over on the DJI Forum and the moderators have stated that auto iso mode kicks in enhanced HDR for photos and video. Not sure if this relates to what you are seeing. Moderators are checking if this applies to jpegs and raw, again might be related.

nickcaptures · 2025-07-18T19:55:45-0400

Thanks for all the replies. I've uploaded the original DNG and JPG here in case you want to have a closer look. Basically I'm just trying to understand why the light/colour gradient around the sun looks so much worse in DNG than in JPG:

MavicTest - Google Drive

drive.google.com

All settings were manual (including manual ISO 100). The drone captured both DNG and JPG at the same time.

I know I can edit the DNG file to make the sun to look better/more natural... but I'm just amazed the JPG did such a good automatic job of processing highlights like this.

I'm opening the DNG in Adobe Camera Raw, Photoshop and Preview (on Mac).

Bussty, thanks for the tip. I'll also try auto ISO test next time and also see what happens.

Bussty · 2025-07-18T22:03:53-0400

Will be good to get to the bottom of it, if you are only Manual ISO (what I normally use) from all that I have seen there is no special HDR processing going on in Jpeg or DNG, the key seems to be that Auto ISO (well according to DJI) is the special ingredient. I have done some tests today so will see what they show. When you are used to just shooting Manual it can start getting overwhelming testing all the variations of auto iso, auto shutter speed and auto aperture!

nickcaptures · 2025-07-19T00:05:21-0400

Oh thanks so much. Would be interested to see if you get the same results as me. I'll also do some more testing next time I get some full direct sun here (unfortunately it's a cloudy day today!)

Meta4 · 2025-07-19T00:23:34-0400

nickcaptures said:
I know I can edit the DNG file to make the sun to look better/more natural.

It's not so much that you can edit the dng files.
It's that you must edit the dng files unless you want them to look dull and flat.
Dng files aren't meant to be left unedited and it sounds like you've done nothing to this one except open it in camera raw and convert it to a jpg?

nickcaptures said:
.. but I'm just amazed the JPG did such a good automatic job of processing highlights like this.

It's quite normal for the jpg files to look better than the (unedited) dng file.

nickcaptures said:
Bussty, thanks for the tip. I'll also try auto ISO test next time and also see what happens.

Unless you edit the dng file, it's still going to look dull and flat.

Filmarik · 2025-07-19T00:25:57-0400

Bussty said:
There has been a post over on the DJI Forum and the moderators have stated that auto iso mode kicks in enhanced HDR for photos and video. Not sure if this relates to what you are seeing. Moderators are checking if this applies to jpegs and raw, again might be related.

Hard to judge from the sample image. But in general, raw files capture wider dynamic range than JPEG, and when processed skilfully the result should be superior to straight out of camera JPEG. There is numerous technical reasons for that. Also you can adjust WB in broad range whereas JPEG need to be nailed in all aspects because if way off significant tonal and WB adjustments will break the JPEG image very quickly. Posterization in skie and other artefacts will ruin the photo..

nickcaptures · 2025-07-19T05:23:29-0400

Meta4 said:
It's not so much that you can edit the dng files.
It's that you must edit the dng files unless you want them to look dull and flat.
Dng files aren't meant to be left unedited and it sounds like you've done nothing to this one except open it in camera raw and convert it to a jpg?

Correct - I haven't done any editing to the sample image. However, I personally would struggle to get the sun looking so natural with my RAW editing skills. I could improve the rest of the image significantly (the sky, water, jetty etc) but I don't think I could match the JPG's sun gradient.