For our August activity, please join us at Santee Lakes for Dragonfly Photography with our president Steve Cirone. Dragonflies are active during the day – when we meet at 10 in the morning they’re still warming up and are a lot more static, that makes photographing them easier.
Details
- Location: 9310 Fanita Parkway, Santee, CA 92071
- Date: Saturday, August 18th, 2018
- Time: 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
- Admission fee: $5 if you park inside the recreation area (free if you walk in)
Steve’s Tips & Tricks
Dragonfly photography is best done with a regular telephoto lenses – not with fancy macro gear which requires one to get super close to the dragonflies (this is very difficult without scaring them off). In the photo below, a regular flash was used. An on camera pop up flash would also work well:
Dragonflies are active mid day. This makes them top lit by the sun and creates a poor lighting situation when photographing the dragonflies from the side. Adding flash erases this issue and fills in light on the dragonfly side.
Note that use of a crop body camera like the Canon 7D II (20ish megs) is an advantage in getting your small subject full frame. A high resolution full frame body with plenty of megapixels that leaves room for cropping will work just as well, of course.
Hope to see you all there!