My DJI Mini 4 Pro takes wonderful photographs and video. To get the most from it, I’ve been exploring different modes and settings to try to achieve the best results. I have switched from shooting video in “Normal” mode to “HLG”, or Hybrid Log-Gamma.

What is HLG?

In this context, HLG is a high dynamic range video format with uses an HLG transfer function.

(Don’t worry, this only gets more confusing.)

This means it is a video format which can encode a very wide range of brightness and a huge range of hues. Most Full HD televisions and computer monitors can only display a fraction of this colour gamut and a sad, dim flicker of the captured brightness. An Ultra HD telly and many mobile phone screens will be able to display the full range of hues, and higher-end HDR devices can vividly reflect the darkest blacks and piercing whites.

By capturing such a wide range of colours and tones, it is possible to edit the video to bring out details hidden in shadow or obscured by bright light and reveal these nuances on standard screens. The wide range of colours gives scope to perform major manipulations of contrast and brightness without clipping the highlights, posterising the gradients of the sky or muddying the blacks.

Unlike the alternative 10-bit “D-Log M” shooting format on the drone, HLG is a well-documented standard format which does not require proprietary tools or LUTS to edit or display correctly. Video shot in HLG can be played directly on UHD TVs as well as being a suitable substrate for video editing.

Editing HLG footage in Davinci Resolve

These days, my video editor of choice is Davinci Resolve. I use DR’s colour management to automatically identify the wide colour space of the HLG footage, convert it to the even wider Davinci Wide Gamut Intermediate colour space for editing, then mould it into Rec 709 for display on standard screens and monitors. This is achieved by these project settings:

Colour space settings showing Color Science as Davinci YRGB Color Managed, Automatic Color Management as unticked, Color Processing Mode as HDR Davinci Wide Gamut Intermediate and Output Color Space as Rec 709 Gamma 2.2

That is all that is required to unlock the full colour correcting and grading potential of the Davinci suite. It is as simple as can be and produces great results.