Soaring Eagle

[Filemon Lopez]

Location: Near Homer Alaska
Nikon D3
Nikon 70-200mm VR

[Mark Fuge]

I like your image, nice scene. However, the image is more a landscape than a flight shot to me, as the bird does not fill the area.

The bird is also centered in the image area, which minimizes its effect of being the main subject.

Attached is another cropping to consider for this type of shot. I have the bird in the upper quadrant, at the approximate 1/3 intersect point, the mountain in the lower quadrant again at approximately the 1/3 intersect point and the landscape in the lower right quadrant, which leaves the upper right quadrant for the birds flight.

<O:pWhile you shoot with what you have, the 70-200 is not a good nature lens. I had an 80-200 lens that I used for bird shots in the past, during my early days. I loved the lens, but not for birds. It does not get you in close enough. Even my 300mm today is small, unless I put on a 1.4x or 2x extender. As you will note, most of the bird photogs here use 500 to 800mm fixed lenses for the images they take. The object of the nature image is to see the catch light in the eye, if possible. Your lens doesn't allow that in this image.

That said, as I noted, I really like the shot. However, maybe more in the landscape category.

To crop the attached, I had to remove the lake area and symmetry of the landscape. For a landscape shot showing the environment of the eagle, that wouldn't be necessary.

I would add a little contrast to the image, based on the view on my monitor. It seems slightly overexposed.

Good luck and keep it up. We are all riding on the same learning curve someplace.

[Kim Rollins]

Mark has said what I was thinking in regards to the image, the subject, suggested crop, etc.

Good repost IMO.


About the lens I do not know.

[Filemon Lopez]

Thanks for the feedback. I thought the original gave more of a sense of place (and probably should go into Landscapes). Believe it or not, I took my 600mm lens to Homer and used it about 15% of the time. The other time I used the 70-200mm VR which is a very sharp lens and can be used effectively depending on the proximity of the subject. Check some of my other postings. Cheers!

[Juan Aragonés]

Very good points by Mark but I prefer the original, of course with a less centered eagle.

[David Hemmings]

Hi Fil! I like the image as is, maybe a touch off from the left. It is a birdscape imo, beautiful really :)

I am still looking at coming down soon, will drop you an email.