A LUT (Look-Up Table) can be used in popular video editing software tools, such as Adobe Premiere Pro CC, After Effects or Vegas. A LUT has the .CUBE extension (or sometimes .3DL) and can be imported into the editor to speed up post-production editing your videos so they look more cinematic and colour accurate.

Some key advantages why to use LUTs:

• video noise can be removed from your DJI Mavic Air drone footage
• increased dynamic range
• high quality visual thanks to RGB adjustments

Before and after applying a LUT

Best DJI Mavic Air camera settings for cinematic 4K footage

First, you will want to configure your Mavic Air to the best possible camera settings. Out of the box, the drone is not optimally configured for the best video and photo quality.

PS: an ND filter can also help you here to increase the image quality

White balance

You never, ever want to set the white balance to ‘automatic’. The white balance will, in the case of ‘automatic’, change during filming a video and this gives a very ugly effect.

Instead, set the white balance based on the situation you find yourself in:

• Sunny: when there is (mostly) sun
• Cloudy: when there are (a lot of) clouds
• Incandescent & Fluorescent: the room or area is lit by artificial light (e.g. LED lighting and neon lights)
• Custom: set it yourself

Style

This is the most important setting for your Mavic Air and when applying LUTs to your video files:

• Sharpness: 0
• Contrast: -3
• Saturation: -2

We want to decrease the contrast and saturation so that we can later compensate both with the LUT in post production.

Color

Don’t chose normal, rather go for D-Cinelike so that your footage has more dynamic range and it’s better prepared in post.

Download free LUT

Free Cinematic LUT Pack for DJI Mavic Air