DJI Mini 5 Pro Best Settings Guide: Camera, Safety, and Control Settings I Use

If you’re brand new to the DJI Mini 5 Pro, I’m going to go over a few settings that I use, settings you may want to consider to help you get the most out of your drone. We’re going to break this down into three different sections: photo settings, safety settings, and control settings to help you capture the shots you want. These are my settings—I’m not saying they’re right or wrong. Everybody has their own preferences, but these are the ones I tend to use on a regular basis.

Camera settings for the DJI Mini 5 Pro

When it comes to camera settings on the DJI Mini 5 Pro, there’s not really a lot that I change. It actually does a really good job, even if you film in auto. But when it comes to frame rate and resolution, I always film at 4K 60 for most of the time. I just like the way it looks, but it also allows me to slow it down by half without losing any quality. That can be especially important when you’re capturing cinematic shots. Sometimes you go to watch it back and you feel the movement’s just a little too fast—you can slow it down by half and make it look a little bit smoother.

The other thing I like to do is set some grid lines. They have a couple different options. If we go to settings and then camera, you can see under grid lines we have a couple different options. We can set an X right over the whole screen, which really helps pinpoint the center point for framing shots. We can also add a grid line over the X, so that’s going to pinpoint your center while also helping with the rule of thirds.

For myself, I don’t use the X. I usually just leave the grid lines on, but I do turn on the center point. That still gives me a nice clear view without too many distractions on the screen. I have my rule of thirds, my grid line for making sure the horizon’s level, and I still have a center point if I want something directly in the center.

Exposure and white balance adjustments

Generally when I fly, I just leave the shutter speed on auto. There might be times when I adjust it if I’m using ND filters, but in general, I tend to leave it on auto. However, there are a few things I do adjust.

The first is the exposure. I always find that sometimes it’s a little overexposed, just slightly. So I usually turn mine down to a negative three. I just find the footage looks a little bit better. That’s personal preference and something you can experiment with—it’s going to depend on the environment.

The other thing I like to adjust is the white balance. That can help prevent color shifting and flickering depending on the lighting conditions, and it can help you get a little bit creative. To adjust white balance, we have to enable pro mode. When we enable pro mode, it shows our white balance—right now in auto mode, it’s set to 5200 Kelvin. We can tap on auto to put it into manual mode.

When I’m outdoors filming, I tend to lock it in at 5,500 Kelvin or 5,600 Kelvin. I find that’s a good middle ground that works well in a wide variety of lighting conditions. If I’m filming on a snowy winter day, sometimes I’ll lower the temperature down to 5,000 or even a little bit lower—it gets rid of some warm tones and makes it look nicer when there’s a lot of snow and white. If you’re filming sunsets, you can turn the color temperature up higher to make your sunset look warmer and more pleasing.

Sharpness settings for better footage

The other thing I recommend is adjusting the sharpness on the DJI Mini 5 Pro. If we go to camera settings, you can see we have something called style. If we tap on it, we get options for sharpness and noise reduction. For noise reduction, I leave it at zero—I think it does a pretty good job for everyday filming.

When it comes to sharpness, I like to turn it down a little bit. I’ll either film at a negative one or negative two. Sometimes I find the footage can be slightly oversharpened at zero, but turning it down just looks a bit better in my opinion. The nice thing about turning it down is you can always add some sharpness later in post, whereas digital sharpness is pretty hard to remove if it’s oversharpened. If you’re not quite sure, just set it to negative one and the footage is going to look really good.

Of course, if you want to take things to the next level when it comes to quality footage, filming in D-Log M is going to give you the most flexibility. I’m going to make a separate video about that. Not everybody wants to do color grading, so don’t feel you need to put it into D-Log M to capture stunning footage—DJI drones actually do a really good job even when filming in normal.

Safety settings you should consider

There are a few safety settings I want to go over. If we go to settings and make sure we’re under the safety tab, you’ll see obstacle avoidance options. Most of the time I leave it in bypass, where it’s going to find a safe route around obstacles. Some people like to have it set to brake. The only time I turn it off is if I’m really trying to get a close proximity shot and the obstacle avoidance is preventing me from getting as close as I’d like. But that’s something you shouldn’t do on a regular basis because sometimes you forget it’s off and the drone can end up running into an obstacle.

When it comes to bypass options, we have normal and nifty. I usually leave it in normal. Nifty allows you to get a little bit closer—the drone takes a little bit more risk—so for some scenarios that might be beneficial, but for the most part, I leave it in normal.

Return to home settings explained

When it comes to return to home, we have two different options, and I use them both equally depending on the environment I’m filming. Especially this time of year here in Ontario, none of the trees have leaves, and that can actually be a problem when using optimal.

The drone can navigate some really complex environments using advanced return to home and optimal—it can fly under obstacles, make extreme maneuvers, and even make tight turns. It’s impressive to see in action. The problem with using optimal is that some environments aren’t really set up for it. If you’re flying in an environment with a lot of wires or thin branches, the obstacle avoidance can have a hard time seeing them.

If I’m in a wide open area or an environment with obstacles that are large and easily detectable, I’ll leave it in optimal. This time of year, if I’m flying around a lot of trees without leaves, I’ll set it to preset. With preset, when you initiate a return to home, the drone is going to climb directly to the return to home altitude, fly straight across back to the home point, and then come straight down. You don’t have to worry about it trying to navigate a complex environment.

If you use preset, it’s important to set your return to home altitude. By default, it’s set at 100 meters, which is pretty high for most environments. Quite often if I’m flying, I’ll set that at 60 if it just has to clear some trees. Remember though, if you’re coming home on an emergency battery return home, preset isn’t quite as efficient because it goes up to that predetermined height first, which could waste critical battery.

Current DJI Mini 5 Pro Amazon Pricing

DJI Mini 5 Pro

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Those who prefer a built-in screen controller

Serious creators who need maximum flight time

$759.00

$959.00

$1,340.00

$1,159.00

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Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

DJI Mini 5 Pro

Budget-conscious buyers with a compatible phone

$759.00

Buy on Amazon

DJI Mini 5 Pro FMC RC-N3

Pilots who want extra batteries and accessories

$959.00

Buy on Amazon

DJI Mini 5 Pro FMC RC 2

Those who prefer a built-in screen controller

$1,340.00

Buy on Amazon

DJI Mini 5 Pro FMC Plus RC 2

Serious creators who need maximum flight time

$1,159.00

Buy on Amazon

DJI Mini 5 Pro control settings for cinematic shots

The next group of settings are for controlling the aircraft, and these can be really important for capturing nice cinematic shots. The first thing I like to do when I get a new drone is set my gain and expo settings—essentially how responsive the drone is to the stick inputs.

If we go to settings, then control, you’ll see an option for gain and expo tuning. At the top, it allows us to adjust settings for all the different flight modes: normal, sport mode, and cine. For normal mode and sport mode, I tend to leave them at default because they work pretty well for everyday flying.

The ones I really focus on are in cine mode, because when I’m in cine mode, I’m usually trying to film slow and cinematically. By default, the horizontal speed is at 6 meters per second, and I find that a little fast. As a rule of thumb, I usually set mine down to about 3 meters per second—I find that’s a reasonable speed to capture slow cinematic shots.

For max ascent speed and descent speed, I usually leave those at default. But the max angular velocity—how quickly the drone will spin when rotating—is important. By default, it’s at 30 degrees. I usually set it down to anywhere between 20 and 25 degrees, which slows it down for better control when doing orbit shots.

Expo settings for smoother movements

Another important thing I like to set when filming in cine mode is the expo. Essentially, expo sets the sensitivity of the sticks. You can set the center sensitivity—how much input you have to push on the stick before it starts to recognize it. This can be extremely important when capturing slow cinematic shots.

Everybody’s dexterity is a little bit different. I like to soften it a little bit so it’s not so sensitive at the center of the stick. I actually have to put a fair amount of movement on it before it starts to read the input. If you take a look at the graph, it shows all the different movements on when it starts to take input.

If you increase the sensitivity, the line becomes more linear, so the instant there’s movement on the stick, it starts to be input. If you lower it, the curve increases, and you have to push on the stick a fair amount before it’s recognized. That’s going to be personal preference—for myself, I find it gives me the smoothest movements.

Gimbal and cruise control settings

The next settings are for the gimbal movements. For speed, I like to set that at 11 or 12. When filming in cine mode, I don’t want really fast gimbal movements—they’re usually being blended with other maneuvers, so I slow that down. For tilt smoothness, I leave it at default at eight, which works fine for my type of filming. The DJI Mini 5 Pro can also roll the camera, but I don’t do a lot of filming with that, so I tend to leave roll speed at default.

Don’t be worried about adjusting these settings too much. There’s nothing you could adjust that would cause the drone to behave erratically. If you mess up and you’re not quite sure what you’ve done, you can always tap reset current settings to put everything back to factory.

One other setting you may want to adjust is cruise control. That’s a really important feature—it allows you to set the speed of the drone and fly without using your sticks for nice smooth, creative shots. Cruise control has to be initiated first by assigning a button to it.

If we go back to settings under control and scroll down, there’s an option for button customization. By default, the C1 button recenters your gimbal, which I find important and leave as is. The C2 button switches between landscape and portrait. I usually set C2 to cruise control because I can use the button built into the screen if I want to film in portrait.

Now when flying with input on the sticks, I can press the C2 button to engage cruise control, and the drone will continue flying while I let go of the sticks.

So those are the settings I use with my DJI Mini 5 Pro for camera, control, and safety. Hopefully you enjoyed this and found it valuable. Thanks for watching, and be sure to visit my Air Photography YouTube channel for more drone content. You can also find more of my articles on my DroneXL author page.

Last update on 2026-01-26 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API