DNG to AV1 Converter

How to Convert DNG to AV1 Online

1. Upload Your DNG Files: Drag and drop or click "+ Add Files" to load Adobe Digital Negative photos from Leica, Hasselblad, Pentax, Pixel, or any RAW capture exported via Adobe DNG Converter. Batch uploads are supported — drop in an entire timelapse sequence in one pass. Files stay in your browser session.
2. Pick Merge Strategy: Choose Merge images to stitch every uploaded DNG into a single AV1 video (the right choice for slideshows and timelapses), or Video per image to emit one short AV1 clip per photo (useful for social-platform cutdowns).
3. Set Duration, Resolution, and Background: Set Duration in seconds per frame — 5s is the default for slideshows; 1/24s through 1/10s produces 24-fps to 10-fps timelapse pacing. Pick a Preset Resolution (256x144 up to 2160P), enter a custom Width x Height, or keep original (4000+ pixels wide on a 24 MP Leica DNG). Set Background Color to fill any letterboxing when aspect ratios don't match.
4. Tune Quality and Convert: Choose Quality Preset (default Very High), or switch to Constant Quality / Constraint Quality to lock a CRF target. Click "Convert" and download. No sign-up, no watermark, no email gating.

Why Convert DNG to AV1?

DNG (Digital Negative) is Adobe's open RAW container, formally standardized as ISO 12234-4 in March 2026 after originally launching in September 2004. A single DNG carries the full sensor mosaic plus camera metadata — useful for editing, impractical for sharing, with files of 25–80 MB at typical 24–60 MP resolutions. AV1 is the royalty-free codec from the Alliance for Open Media (Google, Apple, Mozilla, Netflix, Intel, Amazon) and delivers roughly 30% better compression than H.265 and 50% better than H.264 at the same visual quality. Pairing a high-resolution stills sequence with AV1 produces the smallest possible deliverable.

• Timelapse from RAW sequences — Photographers shooting interval sequences (sunrise, construction, astrophotography) typically end up with hundreds of 30–60 MB DNGs. At 1/24-second frame duration, 720 DNG frames become a 30-second 24 fps AV1 clip that's a fraction of the source weight without crushing detail.
• Portfolio slideshows and client proofs — Real estate, architecture, and product shooters can ship a 20-image AV1 walkthrough that plays in Chrome, Firefox, and Edge without a plugin while staying small enough to embed in a Notion page or email.
• Archival deliverables — When a client wants a watchable preview but you don't want to ship the RAW originals, an AV1 slideshow at 1080p preserves enough fidelity to evaluate the shoot while keeping individual edits private.
• Web hero loops — A 6-photo product loop at 3-second frame duration encodes to a 1–3 MB AV1 file — small enough to autoplay over hero sections without blowing the Core Web Vitals LCP budget.
• Future-proof distribution — AV1 has hardware decoders in Apple M3 and later, A17 Pro / A18, Intel 11th Gen and newer, AMD RDNA 2+, and NVIDIA RTX 40 series, so playback offloads to silicon on modern devices instead of burning CPU.

Need broader device compatibility instead? Try DNG to MP4 for H.264 (universal playback) or DNG to WebM for VP9. If you only need a still image rather than video, see DNG to JPG or merge DNGs into a PDF. Shooting Canon CR3 or Sony ARW instead? CR3 to AV1 and ARW to AV1 follow the same workflow.

AV1 vs Other Video Codecs

AV1 covers roughly 94% of global users for playback per caniuse.com/av1, with Safari being the main constraint — older Apple silicon (M1, M2) and Intel Macs install Safari 17+ but lack a system AV1 decoder. For audiences that include older Macs or pre-2023 iPhones, ship H.264 in MP4 alongside AV1.

Frame Duration Quick Guide

DaVinci Resolve and Lightroom timelapse plugins commonly target 24 or 30 fps for natural motion; cloud and traffic scenes look good at 30 fps, slower subjects like plant growth read well at 10–15 fps.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which cameras and phones produce DNG files I can convert?

Leica (M, Q, SL, and SL2 ranges since the M8 in 2006), Hasselblad X-series, Pentax DSLRs, Sigma fp, Ricoh GR, and most modern Android phones in their "Pro" / "Expert" RAW mode — Google Pixel (all generations, including the 50 MP Pixel 9 Pro), Samsung Galaxy S/Ultra, OnePlus, and Xiaomi. iPhones write Apple ProRAW as DNG (12 MP on iPhone 12 Pro through 14 Pro, up to 48 MP on iPhone 14 Pro and later). For Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Fujifilm, you can convert CR3/NEF/ARW/RAF to DNG with the free Adobe DNG Converter and then run the result through this tool.

How many DNG frames do I need for a usable timelapse?

At 24 fps, you need 24 frames per second of output — so 720 frames yields 30 seconds, 1,440 frames yields one minute. A common rule of thumb for outdoor timelapses is one frame every 2–10 seconds of real time depending on the subject (faster for clouds and traffic, slower for stars and plant growth). 600–1,200 frames is a typical sweet spot for a polished 30–60 second piece.

What resolution should I render at?

For social and web embeds, 1080p (1920x1080) is the safe default and decodes on every AV1-capable device. 4K (2160P) is worth using when the source DNGs are 24 MP or higher and you're shipping to a 4K display or YouTube — but expect encode times to climb and file sizes to roughly quadruple. Avoid "Keep original" unless you genuinely need 6000+ pixel video; most players will downscale anyway.

Will AV1 play on iPhone, Mac, and Windows?

Chrome, Firefox, and Edge play AV1 on every desktop and Android device they run on. Safari 17+ plays AV1 only on hardware with a dedicated decoder — Macs with the M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max, M4 chip or later; iPad Pro M4; iPhone 15 Pro / 15 Pro Max with A17 Pro; and all iPhone 16 models. M1 and M2 Macs and iPhones before the 15 Pro install Safari 17 but cannot play AV1, since Apple has not shipped a software AV1 decoder. If your audience skews toward older Apple gear, ship H.264 via DNG to MP4 alongside the AV1.

Will I lose the RAW editing flexibility after converting?

Yes — once the DNG is rasterized into a video frame, white-balance latitude, exposure recovery, and 14-bit color depth are baked in. The right order is: edit each DNG in Lightroom, Camera Raw, Capture One, or darktable first, export the looked frames (still as DNG, JPEG, or 16-bit TIFF), then run the looked sequence through this converter. Don't treat AV1 as your editing master.

Why does the AV1 file look softer than my source DNGs?

Three usual causes: (1) you downscaled — a 1080p AV1 from a 24 MP DNG sequence is roughly 1/12 the pixel count; (2) the Quality Preset is set lower than Very High; or (3) chroma subsampling — AV1 typically writes 4:2:0 by default, which throws away some color detail. Bump quality to Very High or switch to Constant Quality with a low CRF (around 18–24) for a near-visually-lossless result, at the cost of larger files.

Can I add music or a soundtrack during conversion?

This converter is image-sequence to AV1 video and writes a silent track. To layer audio, render the silent AV1 first, then bring it and your music into a video editor (DaVinci Resolve, iMovie, CapCut) and export with audio. Keep the soundtrack in a separate AAC or Opus track when you re-encode.

How does the file size compare to MP4 or WebM?

For the same perceptual quality, expect AV1 to be roughly 30% smaller than H.265 MP4 and 50% smaller than H.264 MP4 — a 1080p, 30-second slideshow at Very High quality typically lands in the 2–6 MB range, versus 4–12 MB for H.264 MP4. VP9 in WebM lands close to H.265. The trade-off is encode time: AV1 is the slowest of the four to encode, sometimes by 5–10x versus H.264 on the same hardware.

Is anything uploaded to your servers?

Processing runs in your browser session and files are removed after the session ends. No account, no watermark, no file-count gating. The reverse direction (AV1 video back to DNG) isn't a real workflow — AV1 is a delivery codec, not a RAW container — but you can extract still frames with AV1 to JPG if you need image stills out of the finished video.