Photo by Terry Garrett
Dennis Brooks, Club Officer
The Drone Club meets the fourth Monday evening of each month from 7 to 8 p.m. in Room 104, at the Creative Arts Technology Center (CATC). We have no dues, and attendance is open for any Robson resident who is interested in anything that is drone related, regardless of what they own or understand, but have a desire to learn more about. As an enhancement to our Drone Club members, we are now offering a presenter video recording that can be accessed through membership in Groups.io (formerly known as Yahoo Groups) at rrtxtech.groups.io/g/main and at our new website, robsontech.club/tag/drone.
Our Jan. 23 meeting was hosted by Dennis Brooks (club officer). This meeting was our first meeting of 2023. We had a good meeting with lots of interaction. Due to conflicting club banquets, attendance was lower than usual. A selection of aerial photos around Robson was presented. The photos illustrated our drones’ capabilities, as well as showcasing Christmas yard displays here at Robson Denton.
One new resident came. He has just purchased a DJI Mini 3 Pro Fly More Combo for his first drone. This is an excellent balance of aerial capabilities and camera. He received a copy of the Robson Drone checklist and copies of previous presentations by Dennis Brooks.
An overview of photos taken from 4 to 400 feet in altitude and full day to full night was displayed. We progressed with proper exposure value settings with comparative examples day and night, showing how to bring out Christmas lights and suppress reflections from illuminating flood lights. Using the same yard decorations, examples were shown of the value in high-, medium-, and low-altitude photographs. Videos during night flights were not presented but are available to club members. Using the decorations and homes, we covered composition and how to bring out the subject you are interested in by proper framing and altitudes. Our drones are intelligent, allowing the software to adjust settings in Smart Photo and three to five exposure values in sequential photos in various formats. This provides a lot of flexibility using post-processing software. Examples of before and after processing were shown. There are numerous camera settings available if you move from the Automatic to the Professional (Manually Set Values) modes to control the camera in still and video photography.
We finished the meeting with a question and answer session and exchange of information. All enjoyed the meeting and presentation.
The subject of our Feb. 27 meeting, starting at 7 p.m. in Room 104, is currently up in the air and will be posted via the Robson Texas email notices. We are working on alternate meeting sites, with the CATC closing for repairs later this spring. We will have a speaker in February or have the members bring in their drones with accessories and explain their choices.
We hope to see everyone then.