Bald Eagle on the river flats

[Jamie Douglas]

A buddy of mine invited me along to be a guest host for a Bald Eagle photo workshop he is currently running out here for a few days with his company http://northof49photography.com/.

Tricky conditions to say the least with lashing rain and less than cooperative eagles on this occasion, but with a bit of hardiness and perseverance we battled on and came out on top.

Cheers to Kevin Pepper and Tim Vollmer for having me along.

Here is one of the more cooperative eagles fluffing up his feathers after a down pour.

Techs | Canon 1D Mark IV | 500mm F4 II w/ 2x extender II | F8 | 1/250 | ISO 2000| Manual Exposure | Tripod

Image has been cropped from original file due to the pain of only having a central AF point at F8 - any tips for composition techniques in this department would be appreciated - this is the first time I pulled out my dusty 2x with this lens body and combo.

Cheers

Jamie

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Jamie, perhaps your best in terms of hi ISO, nicely processed too!

The crop works nicely and I like the habitat, although not the big 'rock' on the RHS is just too distracting and dominant for me, but little you could do unless you 'remove' it? If you have, I would ease back any lightening on the underneath of the eagle, light looks to even I feel and has no shadow areas, but could be wrong. Certainly waiting for him/her to plump up the feathers was a good call, love the layering with good detail. I think you need to look at trading in the 2x and buy the new one, far better, but you can perhaps test it out next year?

TFS
Steve

[Alan Murphy]

Nice habitat image.

[Joe Senzatimore]

Ditto on the big rock. Do like the comp. and fine IQ here.

[dankearl]

I don't mind the rock, I like the habitat and the mood with the subdued lighting.
IQ is nice.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Jamie, good placement in the frame, overall well exposed on both the darker plumage and the whites of the head. The 'hanging' feet show off the talons nicely, and your patience paid off.

[Holger Leyrer]

I like "fluffing bird" images. Yours, with the habitat, is beautifull.

[Jamie Douglas]

Cheers for the feedback guys. I was impressed at the level of detail considering I was using a 2x and then had to crop. Just goes to show that you have to put faith in your gear sometimes and occasionally at times when the light is poor and you would usually dismiss adding a 2x. The results surprised me anyway.

The large piece of driftwood aka rock ;) are all too common here and are tricky to factor into images. I like it in this case as it adds a little depth to the habitat and I felt the BG would be a little too vacant looking without it.

Steve, PP was minimal in terms of shadow adjustments but I did increase the dark dark tones to bring in a little more detail but that was only in the area immediately under the wing, the darkest parts (very slight adjustment). I’ll take a look at my PSD file again tonight.

:cheers:</SPAN>

[Matthew Studebaker]

nice low shooting angle and soft light. The muddy, messy environment could use a coating of snow!

[Tom Friedel]

You chose f/8 because that works best with the 2x?

[Jamie Douglas]

nice low shooting angle and soft light. The muddy, messy environment could use a coating of snow!

Cheers Matthew. Snow sure would be a bonus in these parts and also down where the SEOs hang out.

I am already praying to the snow gods.

[Jamie Douglas]

You chose f/8 because that works best with the 2x?

Tom, the science behind my F stop decision was far more primitive :e3. Basically I hadn't used my 2x before in the field with the 500mm and given the dreary conditions I was reluctant to boost the ISO any further than ISO2000, so in order to do that and keep a relatively half decent shutter speed I shot wide open at the default F8. I had thought about going to F11 but that would have cost me shutter speed and forced me to bump up the ISO. It was too windy to shoot below /1250 in my opinion.

Hopefully I get to push the 2x and 500mm combo again this winter so will definitely explore detail at other F stops.

Hope this helps clarify the F8 decision.

Jamie

[David Salem]

Nice enviormental shot with the eagle sitting on the stump. Good job especially with the weather.

[arash_hazeghi]

very nice it shows the habitat too, looks like you did not have much light, dark feathers are showing some noise, would clean up with NR

[Tom Friedel]

Thanks about the f setting. Sounds like you thought the image would look best with a higher setting. I don't want to get off topic but asked because I struggle with that. I use 300 f/2.8 with 2x most of the time, and often without enough light. It has been written you need to step up one or two stops for good results with the 2x, and I struggle with the balance of having enough shutter speed and the best f stop, and ISO, and especially what situatoins where it might be ok to shoot at (in my case with 2.8) 5.6.
thanks!

[Jamie Douglas]

very nice it shows the habitat too, looks like you did not have much light, dark feathers are showing some noise, would clean up with NR

Thanks Arash, I went back into the PSD file last night after Steve mentioned the shadows and adjusted the depth of tone and colour noise to improve things. Cheers for picking up on that.

Jamie

[Jamie Douglas]

Thanks about the f setting. Sounds like you thought the image would look best with a higher setting. I don't want to get off topic but asked because I struggle with that. I use 300 f/2.8 with 2x most of the time, and often without enough light. It has been written you need to step up one or two stops for good results with the 2x, and I struggle with the balance of having enough shutter speed and the best f stop, and ISO, and especially what situatoins where it might be ok to shoot at (in my case with 2.8) 5.6.
thanks!

No worries Tom, I don't think it's an exact science and depends on conditions etc. when it comes to determining the F Stop with convertors. From what I hear and see with the new series II canon lenses and extenders, shooting wide open is more of an option with or without convertors but I still have a lot to determine myself in the field. The 300mm and 2x should be sharp at F5.6 but you could try stopping down to F6,3 or 7.1 even 8 if DOF isn't a major factor in your image in terms of bg texture etc. and you wanted to experiment to check IQ.

Good luck

Jamie