With the recent announcement of the DJI Mini 5 Pro and its impressive one-inch sensor, it’s easy to get caught up in gear envy. But here’s the truth: your current equipment doesn’t become obsolete just because something newer hits the market.
The DJI Mini 4 Pro remains an excellent tool for aerial photography, and its RAW files have more than enough latitude for serious work. To prove it, I took the Mini 4 Pro out over Melbourne at dusk and captured a five-frame panorama of the city as the lights began to glow against the fading sky.
This tutorial walks through my complete processing workflow—from initial adjustments through panorama stitching to the selective masking that brings urban landscapes to life. Whether you’re flying a Mini 4 Pro, Mini 3, or any other drone that captures RAW files, these techniques will help you create dramatic cityscape panoramas.
THE PROCESSING WORKFLOW
Understanding the Challenge
Dusk photography from a drone presents unique challenges: you’re balancing the bright city lights against a darkening sky, trying to preserve detail in shadowed areas while preventing blown highlights from stage lights and building windows. The solution lies in shooting multiple frames for a panorama (giving you resolution and width) and using selective masking to control different zones of the image independently.
Step 1: Global Adjustments Before Stitching
Before merging a panorama, I apply consistent adjustments across all frames. This ensures the stitched result already looks cohesive rather than requiring heavy post-processing afterward.
White Balance: I deliberately set the white balance while flying to capture the natural warmth of dusk light. There’s no need to adjust it in post—the Mini 4 Pro captured the color temperature accurately. Vibrance and saturation also remain untouched at this stage.
Exposure & Tonal Adjustments: The key here is opening up the shadows while protecting the highlights:
- Increased exposure by approximately one stop to brighten the overall scene
- Pulled highlights down significantly to prevent blown areas in the bright city lights
- Lifted shadows to reveal detail in the darker parts of the cityscape
The Mini 4 Pro’s RAW files show impressive dynamic range here. Even with stage lights from a concert at Federation Square and bright building windows, the highlight recovery is clean. The shadow detail along the Yarra River and in the gardens comes back beautifully without introducing excessive noise.
Sharpening Strategy: Sharpening comes last in my workflow—always after panorama stitching and all masking adjustments are complete. Adding sharpness too early can create artifacts when images are merged.
Step 2: Creating the Panorama
With five frames adjusted identically, the merge process is straightforward:
Cylindrical Projection: For city panoramas, cylindrical projection works beautifully. It maintains the natural perspective of vertical lines (buildings stay straight) while wrapping the scene horizontally across a wide field of view. Spherical projection would curve the buildings unnaturally, and perspective projection would stretch the edges too much.
Boundary Warp: After the initial merge, I use Lightroom’s boundary warp feature to stretch the image slightly and minimize the empty transparent areas at the edges. This maximizes the usable area of the panorama without requiring aggressive cropping later.
The result is a seamless panorama that captures Melbourne’s skyline from the Arts Centre spire on the left, across Flinders Street Station and Federation Square, to the Yarra River gardens on the right.
Step 3: Post-Merge Refinement
Once stitched, I make a subtle global exposure increase to brighten the overall image. But this is just setup work—the real transformation happens through selective masking.
Step 4: Selective Masking for Depth and Drama
This is where the image evolves from a competent panorama into something with real visual impact.
The Sky: Creating Atmospheric Drama
Using Lightroom’s AI-powered sky selection, I isolate the entire sky area and make targeted adjustments:
- Deepen the blacks to create rich, dark tones in the deeper parts of the sky
- Push the whites up to brighten the lighter areas of the clouds
- Subtle highlight reduction to prevent any blown areas
- Further white adjustment for maximum contrast
The technique here is the push-pull between blacks and whites. By deepening shadows and brightening highlights simultaneously, you create three-dimensional depth in what would otherwise be a flat dusk sky. The clouds become sculptural rather than just a gradient.
The Architecture: Making the City Glow
For the buildings, I use Lightroom’s subject selection set to “Architecture,” which intelligently identifies all the structures in the frame:
- Moderate exposure increase to make the city lights glow
- Careful highlight adjustment (I slide it around to check for halos at building edges—if pushed too far, you’ll see unwanted glowing)
- Shadow lift to reveal architectural detail
- Clarity boost for definition and “pop”
Critical step: I subtract the sky from this mask. Without this, you’d get visible halos where bright buildings meet the dark sky—a telltale sign of over-processing.
The clarity adjustment deserves special mention. Clarity adds midtone contrast, which makes architectural details crisper and more defined without the harshness of overall sharpening. It’s particularly effective on urban scenes where you want structure and definition.
The Gardens: Bringing Nature Back Into View
The vegetation along the Yarra River and at the Royal Botanic Gardens was getting lost in the shadows, so I manually paint over these areas with a brush:
- Significant exposure increase to bring the green spaces forward
- Shadow lift to reveal tree and garden detail
- Later refinement: I subtract the train tracks from this mask—they were drawing the eye unnecessarily and breaking up the composition
This adjustment creates visual balance. Without it, the image becomes purely about the built environment. By bringing the gardens forward, you get a more complete sense of Melbourne as a city that integrates nature and architecture.
Fed Square Highlight Control
During the shoot, a concert was underway at Federation Square, and the stage lights were slightly blown. Rather than letting these hot spots draw attention, I paint over the area with a brush and:
- Reduce exposure
- Pull back highlights
This is subtle correction work—the kind that viewers won’t consciously notice but that keeps their eye moving through the composition rather than getting stuck on a blown highlight.
Step 5: Final Refinements
Composition Through Cropping: The initial panorama includes more of the western suburbs than necessary. By cropping in on the left edge, the composition becomes more focused on the city center, the river, and the interplay between urban and natural elements. I preserve the cloud formation at the top—it adds visual interest and balances the composition.
Sharpening for Output: The final step is always sharpening, and I approach it selectively:
Using Lightroom’s masking slider (hold Option/Alt while adjusting to see a preview), I control exactly what gets sharpened. White areas in the preview will be sharpened; black areas won’t. This prevents sharpening flat areas like sky or smooth water, which would only introduce noise.
I set sharpening to approximately 80 points for this image. This works well for web display and moderate-sized prints. For large-format printing, I’d add additional output sharpening specific to the print size and media type. But for most uses, this level provides crisp detail without over-sharpening artifacts.
THE END RESULT
© Michael Evans Photographer
A FEW OTHER PANORAMIC IMAGES CAPTURED ON THE SAME FLIGHT
© Michael Evans Photographer
© Michael Evans Photographer
TECHNICAL DETAILS
- Drone: DJI Mini 4 Pro
- File Format: RAW (DNG)
- White Balance: Custom set during flight
- Panorama: 5 frames, cylindrical projection
- Processing: Adobe Lightroom Classic
🚁 PRACTICAL TIPS FOR DRONE PANORAMAS
Melbourne-Specific Considerations
Regulations and Permissions: Melbourne has specific drone restrictions, particularly around the CBD and near Essendon and Melbourne airports. Always check CASA (Civil Aviation Safety Authority) regulations before flying. Apps like OpenSky provide real-time airspace information and help you stay compliant. Many areas require permits or have altitude restrictions—don’t assume you can fly anywhere just because you can physically take off.
Timing for Urban Aerials: The 20-30 minutes immediately after sunset—often called blue hour—offers the best light for cityscapes. The city lights are fully illuminated, but there’s still color and detail in the sky rather than pure black. Shoot too early and the lights don’t glow; shoot too late and you lose the sky completely.
Weather and Wind: Melbourne’s weather changes rapidly. The Mini 4 Pro handles moderate wind admirably well, but gusts above 30km/h will affect stability and potentially introduce motion blur even at fast shutter speeds. Check wind forecasts and be prepared to reschedule if conditions aren’t favorable.
Composition Strategies:
- Include the Yarra River for natural leading lines that guide the eye through the frame
- Shoot during events (concerts, festivals, sports) for added visual interest and storytelling
- The Royal Botanic Gardens and other green spaces provide color contrast against the urban landscape
- Frame the shot to show scale—including both intimate street-level detail and the broader skyline
THE MINI 4 PRO IN PERSPECTIVE
With the Mini 5 Pro now available, it’s tempting to think the Mini 4 Pro is suddenly inadequate. That’s not how photography works.
The Mini 4 Pro produces excellent RAW files with impressive dynamic range. The highlight recovery demonstrated in this image—pulling back stage lights, building windows, and bright signage without artifacts—shows the sensor’s capability. Shadow detail in the gardens and along the river comes back cleanly with minimal noise.
Will the Mini 5 Pro’s one-inch sensor offer advantages? Almost certainly, particularly in low light and for even greater dynamic range. But the Mini 4 Pro isn’t obsolete. Master the tool you have, understand its capabilities and limitations, and upgrade when your work genuinely requires it—not just because marketing tells you to.
The image you see here was created with the Mini 4 Pro. The limiting factor isn’t the drone; it’s technique, light, and vision.
📸 GEAR USED
- Drone: DJI Mini 4 Pro
- Processing: Adobe Lightroom Classic
- Technique: 5-frame cylindrical panorama
- Additional processing: Selective masking (sky, architecture, vegetation)
💬 QUESTION FOR YOU
Have you experimented with drone panoramas? What’s your favorite city or landscape to capture from above? Melbourne’s mix of modern architecture, historic buildings, and integrated green spaces makes it endlessly interesting from the air—I’d love to hear about your own aerial photography experiences and challenges in the comments below.
WATCH THE FULL TUTORIAL
For the complete step-by-step walkthrough including all the masking techniques demonstrated in real-time, watch the full video above.