Most professional drone photographers stop practicing basic flight maneuvers once they’ve mastered their craft. Joanna Steidle — with over 35 international awards and features in Smithsonian Magazine—flies around her ceiling fan at least 10 times a week.
“Even if I hit it right once, you just keep practicing,” she said, in an exclusive interview with The Drone Girl.
It’s a small detail that reveals something crucial about how Steidle has built one of the most recognized portfolios in drone photography. While many photographers chase the latest gear or the most exotic locations, Steidle has built her success on what’s less glamorous — spending time on engaging on social media, technical mastery, deliberate constraints and an almost obsessive attention to craft.
What gear Joanna Steidle uses these days
When DJI released the Mavic 4 Pro, Steidle wanted to wait.
“I really wanted to wait and get the second in the series,” she said. “I always find that the second in the series is so much better.”
It’s an unusual philosophy in an industry driven by early adopters and gear reviews. But Steidle has learned that the newest technology isn’t always the best tool for the job — and that mastering what you have matters more than constantly upgrading.
She eventually purchased the Mavic 4 Pro only because of concerns about potential bans affecting future availability. But months later, she still hasn’t opened the box.
“I haven’t even turned it on yet,” she said.
Instead, she continues shooting all her award-winning fine art photography on the Mavic 3 Pro — a drone she knows intimately. Most award-winning images in her portfolio were shot on that same platform.
Her full kit reflects this purposeful approach:
- Mavic 3 Pro: For all fine art photography work
- Mini 4 Pro: Reserved for teaching lessons
- Avata 2: For FPV footage through trees and fast-paced commercial work
- Phantom 4 Pro: An older model she’s held onto for a “really creative” summer project (stay tuned!)
The technical demands of aerial fine art
When Steidle says she can spend weeks editing a single photograph, she’s not exaggerating.
“People want six to eight feet on their wall,” she explains. “I need to get down into every little pixel in order to enlarge and still maintain that clarity.”
That level of detail requires a fundamentally different approach than most drone photography. She’s not just adjusting exposure and saturation. She’s examining the texture of water, the clarity of bubbles, the way light interacts with organic surfaces, all at a scale where any imperfection becomes immediately visible.
Her dolphin “Motherhood” series exemplifies this challenge.
“It’s very rare to get that kind of clarity on bubbles moving that fast,” she said.
The bubbles had to be sharp enough to enlarge dramatically while still appearing natural. Each required individual attention.
Mastering light through repetition
One of the most technically demanding aspects of Steidle’s marine life photography is something that sounds simple: positioning the drone relative to the sun.
“Once I take the drone up and I see the conditions in terms of sun and lighting, I fly up, I fly out towards the sun, I turn around, I maneuver the drone so I can see the best angles,” she said. “Sometimes shooting a little more into the sun is a good thing — you’d be surprised — and sometimes it’s not.”
That dolphin shadow falling perfectly on the mother’s belly on the photo above? That required knowing exactly where the sun was, how the shadow would fall, and positioning the drone at the precise angle to capture it. It wasn’t luck. It was technical execution based on understanding light.
Similarly, her “Another World” photograph — featuring cow nose rays moving through schools of baitfish — benefited from sun rays penetrating crystal-clear water.
“There wasn’t a lot of touch-ups on that because the sun rays were just so perfect the way they came through,” she recalls. “But it was just a matter of pulling out those greens and lights and highlights.”
Why Steidle doesn’t often travel for her drone work
While many drone photographers diversify their locations, subjects and styles (and spend thousands of dollars traveling the world to do so), Steidle has deliberately constrained herself geographically — and argues it’s made her better.
Geographically, she focuses almost exclusively on the East Coast. Subject-wise, she concentrates on marine life, coastal patterns, marshes and top-down abstracts.
Her photo editing software
She started using only Photoshop, teaching herself through trial and error. Eventually she added Lightroom, but reluctantly.
“It wasn’t until someone said, ‘You gotta do Lightroom now, enough’s enough, you’re a photographer,’” she recalls.
Recently she completed a DaVinci course for color grading and masking. Each new tool gets added deliberately, mastered thoroughly, then integrated into her workflow.
“When you self-teach yourself, you miss a lot,” she acknowledges. “There’s a lot of those little basic things that can really make your time, prioritize your time and really utilize it to the best of your ability.”
That’s why, despite 35+ awards, she still takes courses. That’s why she still practices flying around the ceiling fan. Technical mastery isn’t a destination — it’s continuous refinement.
The flying skills others overlook
When Steidle talks about using the Avata 2 to fly through trees at high speed or navigate tight indoor spaces, she’s not just showing off. She’s maintaining skills that directly improve her wildlife photography.
“I really do like to fly fast,” she said. “I’d rather fly as fast as I possibly can at every given moment. And I think it was one of the major things that I struggled with, was slowing down for cinematic footage. I was like, ‘This is so boring,’ but it is beautiful. And it’s what sells.”
That tension between her natural flying style and what the work requires forced her to develop precise control at all speeds. Fast FPV flying builds reflexes and spatial awareness. Slow cinematic flying builds patience and smoothness. Together, they create a pilot who can position a drone exactly where it needs to be when a pod of dolphins appears unexpectedly.
The marine life photography requires both skill sets. She needs the patience to hover in position for extended periods, watching for behavior. But when the moment comes — when the light hits the dolphin calf at exactly the right angle — she needs the reflexes to capture it before it’s gone.
“I had my shutter right, I had everything in line, I had everything prepared,” she said of the dolphin shot. That preparation only matters if you can execute when it counts.
Minimalism in her aerial photography
Steidl describes much of her work as minimalistic, but it’s a technically demanding minimalism.
“I want to focus on the coastal line, the marine life, sand patterns, marshes, top-down abstracts,” she explains. Each requires different technical approaches but shares that minimalist aesthetic — showing just enough to tell the story.
What’s next beyond practicing around her ceiling fan
“If you think about it, I’ve only been doing photography for five years. I’m really only in my infancy,” Steidle said.
For someone with 35+ awards, that statement might sound like false modesty. But she means it technically. She’s identified specific skills she wants to develop: better color grading, more sophisticated masking, advanced techniques for managing large-scale prints.
“I definitely don’t think my work is so fantastic it doesn’t need improvement,” she said. “We always need to focus and improve, whether that be just flying skills… you just keep practicing.”
It’s that technical humility — combined with proven mastery — that separates professional craft from amateur enthusiasm. She knows what she’s good at. She also knows exactly where she can improve and actively works on those specific skills.
When she talks about her upcoming humpback whale lunge-feeding project, she’s not just thinking about getting lucky with a spectacular moment. She’s thinking about the technical challenge of capturing something “you can’t get from a boat” — a top-down perspective of whales charging open-mouthed through baitfish, with clarity on both the whales and the scattering fish.
That’s a technical problem requiring specific solutions in positioning, timing, exposure, and post-processing. It’s the kind of challenge that keeps her practicing around the ceiling fan.
Because even after 35 awards, there’s always one more technical skill to master.
Follow Joanna Steidle’s work on Instagram @joannasteidle or visit JoannaSteidle.com to see her latest marine life photography and technical approaches.
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