DJI D-Log M to Rec 709: the simplest way to get normal-looking color
Every DJI owner does this once. You read somewhere that D-Log M is "what the pros use", switch it on before a flight, get some lovely shots of a coastline at golden hour, and then open the files to find a gray, milky version of what you remember seeing on the screen.
If you're there right now, good news. Nothing's wrong, the footage is fine, and the fix takes about as long as reading this sentence.
The quick version
D-Log M is a flat color profile. It's designed to be converted, not watched. You fix it by applying a D-Log M to Rec 709 conversion LUT as the very first thing on the clip. Then you add whatever look you want on top.
→ Free Aprture Conversion LUT Pack, which includes D-Log M and full D-Log.
What you should not do is drop a cinematic LUT straight on the flat footage. That's where the crushed shadows and the radioactive grass come from, and I'll explain why further down.
What D-Log M actually is (in two paragraphs)
Normal video mode on a DJI bakes in the contrast and saturation the camera thinks the scene should have. It looks good instantly, but if the sky's bright and the ground's in shadow, one of them loses. Drones live in exactly that situation all day.
D-Log M squashes the whole brightness range into a low-contrast image so the bright sky and the dark ground both survive. The M stands for "mild" (or near enough). It's a gentler version of DJI's full D-Log, made for the smaller sensors in the Mini and Air and Pocket, and it's a lot more forgiving than the log profiles on big cinema cameras. It also records in 10-bit, which is the part that actually matters: it's why the footage doesn't fall apart when you push the color around.
So the flatness isn't a bug. It's the point. You just have to develop it.
"Correctly exposed D-Log M. This is what it should look like before you touch it."]
Which DJI cameras shoot D-Log M
Roughly: the Mini 4 Pro and Mini 5 Pro, the Air 3 and Air 3S, the Mavic 3 family, the Osmo Pocket 3, and the Osmo Action 4 onwards. Newer models sometimes label it differently or offer full D-Log as well, so check your camera's color settings for the exact name. If it says D-Log M, this post is for you. If it just says D-Log, the process is identical, you just use the D-Log conversion instead of the D-Log M one, and the footage will look even flatter to start with.
One more thing: D-Log M is only available when you're recording 10-bit. If you can't find it in the menu, that's usually why.
The fix, step by step
- Import the clip and apply the D-Log M to Rec 709 LUT first. Not a creative LUT. The conversion one. In Resolve, that's the first node. In Premiere, the Input LUT slot in Lumetri. In Final Cut, the Camera LUT in the Inspector. In CapCut desktop, the LUT tab under Adjust.
- Now look at the exposure. Once it's converted you can actually judge it. Nudge exposure or contrast if the day was harder than you thought.
- Then add your look. Creative LUT, grain, whatever you like. Always on top of the conversion, never instead of it.
That's the whole workflow. If you've got a timeline of forty drone clips, do the conversion on a shared node or an adjustment layer in Resolve, or set it as the clip's input color space, and you won't have to do it forty times.
DJI's own LUT vs a third-party one
DJI gives away an official D-Log M to Rec 709 LUT and it's a perfectly good starting point. Two honest reasons to use ours instead:
- The DJI one lands a little hot. Contrast and saturation come in strong, which is fine on its own but fights with any creative LUT you put on top. Ours is tuned to be a clean, neutral base so a look sits on it properly.
- It comes in a pack with Apple Log, GoPro Protune, Sony S-Log and the rest. If you ever cut drone footage alongside a phone or a mirrorless, having all the conversions in one folder saves a lot of hunting.
Neither is wrong. If you already use DJI's and it works for you, keep going.
→ Free Aprture Conversion LUT Pack, which includes D-Log M and full D-Log.
The mistake that makes DJI footage look terrible
Someone buys a cinematic LUT pack, drags it onto their flat D-Log M clip, and it looks like a mistake. Blacks gone to zero, greens glowing, sky posterized into bands. They decide the LUT is rubbish.
The LUT was built for a normal (Rec 709) image. Fed a flat log image it's trying to add contrast to something that's had the contrast deliberately removed, and it overshoots. Every creative LUT we sell, and nearly every one on the market, expects Rec 709 underneath it unless it specifically says "D-Log M" on the label.
The order is always:
D-Log M clip → conversion LUT → creative LUT → grain / overlays
Get that right and a LUT pack looks like the demo. Get it wrong and nothing you buy will ever look right.
→ Flight LUT pack, built for DJI drone footage after conversion.
→ Cinematic LUTs built for DJI footage after conversion.
Getting D-Log M to grade cleanly: what to do in the air
The conversion LUT can only develop what you gave it. A few things on the day make the difference between footage that grades beautifully and footage that goes noisy the moment you convert it.
Expose a touch bright. Log footage that's underexposed goes noisy in the shadows, and drone shadows are usually the interesting bit (trees, cliffs, the dark side of a building). Push it slightly brighter than looks right on the screen, without clipping the sky. Turn the zebras or the histogram on so you can see the clipping point.
Stick near the base ISO. DJI's small sensors are cleanest at their native ISO for D-Log M. Check your model's manual for the exact number, but the principle holds everywhere: don't crank ISO to fix exposure. Use the next tip instead.
Use ND filters. You want a shutter speed around double your frame rate (1/50 at 25fps, 1/60 at 30fps) for natural motion blur. In daylight that means an ND filter or your shutter's at 1/2000 and everything looks like a video game. A set of NDs for a Mini or Air is cheap and does more for the cinematic look than any LUT.
Lock white balance. Auto white balance drifts mid-shot as the drone turns and the sky changes. Set it manually before takeoff so the whole flight matches and the conversion LUT does the same thing to every clip.
Should you shoot D-Log M at all?
Honestly, not always. It's worth it for anything with a bright sky and shadowed ground, sunrise and sunset, coastlines, cities at dusk, anything you're going to spend time grading.
For a quick clip of the house for the family group chat, Normal mode is fine and it saves you the step. And if you're posting straight from the DJI app on your phone with no editing, Normal is the right call every time. D-Log M with no conversion is worse than Normal, not better.
My rule: D-Log M for anything I'll actually edit, Normal for everything else.
Quick questions
Why does my D-Log M footage look green (or magenta)? Usually white balance. D-Log M is quite sensitive to a wrong white balance and it shows up as a green or magenta cast that the conversion LUT then makes obvious. Fix white balance before the LUT, not after. If it's consistently green on every clip, lock white balance in the drone before your next flight.
Why is the sky banding after I grade it? Two causes. Either the footage was recorded in 8-bit (D-Log M should be 10-bit, so check your settings), or the grade is pushing a smooth gradient too hard. A little film grain on top hides banding remarkably well and it's how a lot of drone footage gets away with it. → Cinematic Grain
Can I use a D-Log M LUT on D-Log footage, or the other way round? No. They're different curves. D-Log is flatter and needs a stronger correction. Using the wrong one gives you something that's either too contrasty or still washed out. The free pack includes both.
Do I need the conversion LUT if I'm grading in Resolve with color management? If you've set up DaVinci color management and told it the clip is D-Log M, it does the conversion for you and you don't need the LUT. Most people haven't set that up, and the LUT gets the same result in one click, so for most of you the LUT is the simpler route.
Does the Osmo Pocket 3 need a different LUT to the Mini 4 Pro? No. D-Log M is the same profile across DJI cameras, so one conversion LUT covers all of them. The footage will look slightly different because the sensors and lenses differ, but the conversion is the same.
