Bald Eagle pair

[Roy Priest]

Went to a friends house on Sunday and spotted a peregrine in the distance. She gained height and there was a small flock of barn pigeons under her so I expected a stoop, but she started losing height and came about 30 feet over our heads " cacking" at something we couldn't see. She disappeared behind some large trees on the property but we could still hear her. She then came and landed on one of the trees she had originally disappeared behind. I took a few :D shots of her until this pair of Baldies came and pusher her off her perch.

Edited to include settings

Camera: NIKON D90
Lens: AF-S VR Nikkor 500mm F4G ED
Focal length: 850*mm*(equiv. 1275*mm)
Aperture: F20
Exposure time: 1/60" (+1*EV)
ISO speed rating: 200/24°
Program: Aperture priority
Metering Mode: Pattern
White Balance: Auto
Focus Mode: AF-C
Image Stabilizer: On
Noise Reduction: Off
Flash: Flash did not fire

[Lance Peters]

Hi Roy - magnificent birds - good HA on both :) F20 was probably overkill here - would have traded some DOF for some more shutter speed - bit slow at 1/60th for that focal length, havent done too bad though.
Looks a little dark and flat on my screen - set a white point - adjusted the contrast - sharpened the eyes and adjusted the mid tones just a tad.

Birds do look a little soft.

Keep em coming :)

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Roy,
Congratulations Roy...I like this capture, both birds are looking in the same direction and both with good head angles and sharp eyes. Mr. Peters' repost puts it over the top...good show...:cool:

[Richard Waas]

Great capture. Lances WP settings takes it over the top for me too. Congrats on a great image.........

[Alfred Forns]

Excellent repost Lance !!!

Roy imagine you were trying to make sure there was enough dof for both but don't do so at the expense of shutter speed, if it blurred it won't do any good !!!!

Exposure wise you need to bow the bg in order to get detail in the birds, not much you can do about it but high key images look really good !!!

Excellent composition with good poses, if anything might give a little more room up top !!! Great catch !!!

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Nice shot Roy, agree with techs and like the repost by Lance. Think you can go back into the RAW and lighten it, although you will get some noise in the darks.

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

Seem like you were having a great time. Nice eyes contact on both of them, I think the yellow flowers on the perch add to the image. Agree with all the advise given.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Nice base image and compsition. This is a post opportunity with many trade-offs. I like Lance's repost, 1/60 is slow and I suppose this is a large crop. Eagles are hard to close-up, I could be wrong this time. Nice nature shot, some improvements can be made, selective sharpen (high-Pass) might help softness..

[David Thomasson]

It's not nice to mess with Mother Nature ... but I do it anyway. Love the coordinated head turns.
If I were playing for keeps, I would add a little headroom.

Some wicked fringing in this image -- red, green, purple, yellow. Common with out feathered friends.

http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/7262/eaglesa.jpg

[Roy Priest]

Hi Roy - magnificent birds - good HA on both :) F20 was probably overkill here - would have traded some DOF for some more shutter speed - bit slow at 1/60th for that focal length, havent done too bad though.
Looks a little dark and flat on my screen - set a white point - adjusted the contrast - sharpened the eyes and adjusted the mid tones just a tad.

Birds do look a little soft.

Keep em coming :)

Lance, thanks for the repost and the advice on the settings. I just get excited and tend to shoot first and look after.:)

[Roy Priest]

Hi Roy,
Congratulations Roy...I like this capture, both birds are looking in the same direction and both with good head angles and sharp eyes. Mr. Peters' repost puts it over the top...good show...:cool:

THanks Gus, I'll keep trying.

[Roy Priest]

Great capture. Lances WP settings takes it over the top for me too. Congrats on a great image.........

Thanks Richard.

[Roy Priest]

Excellent repost Lance !!!

Roy imagine you were trying to make sure there was enough dof for both but don't do so at the expense of shutter speed, if it blurred it won't do any good !!!!

Exposure wise you need to bow the bg in order to get detail in the birds, not much you can do about it but high key images look really good !!!

Excellent composition with good poses, if anything might give a little more room up top !!! Great catch !!!

Thanks Alfred, good advice. Not too sure how to make a high key image. What did you mean "you need to bow the bg"?

[Roy Priest]

Nice shot Roy, agree with techs and like the repost by Lance. Think you can go back into the RAW and lighten it, although you will get some noise in the darks.

Thanks Jackie, I tried that but couldn't get it to look right.

[Roy Priest]

Seem like you were having a great time. Nice eyes contact on both of them, I think the yellow flowers on the perch add to the image. Agree with all the advise given.

Thanaboon, thanks for the response.

[Roy Priest]

Nice base image and compsition. This is a post opportunity with many trade-offs. I like Lance's repost, 1/60 is slow and I suppose this is a large crop. Eagles are hard to close-up, I could be wrong this time. Nice nature shot, some improvements can be made, selective sharpen (high-Pass) might help softness..

Jeff, it isn't actually a big crop and I will take all the advice for future shots. I'm confident I can reproduce this shot in the future. There will be lots of eagles here soon.

[Roy Priest]

It's not nice to mess with Mother Nature ... but I do it anyway. Love the coordinated head turns.
If I were playing for keeps, I would add a little headroom.

Some wicked fringing in this image -- red, green, purple, yellow. Common with out feathered friends.

http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/7262/eaglesa.jpg

David, I like your version. I tried to add a blue background but failed miserably, any advice you could give me would be welcome. How did you isolate the background? I found with all the foliage that it was hard to do.

[Alfred Forns]

Your usual outstanding repost David !! Just ... Wow !!!!

Roy ... meant to say blow the sky !! for high key images just worry about the bird, the sky in the histogram will be blown.

[David Thomasson]

David, I like your version. I tried to add a blue background but failed miserably, any advice you could give me would be welcome. How did you isolate the background? I found with all the foliage that it was hard to do.

Thank you. The blue channel has the best contrast. You can copy that and adjust levels to enhance contrast further, then use the bottom part to mask out the branches.

Here (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=32905384) is a technique for turning a white sky blue. Where it affects light areas such as on the birds, you can just paint those out on the selective color layer mask.

[Roy Priest]

Thank you. The blue channel has the best contrast. You can copy that and adjust levels to enhance contrast further, then use the bottom part to mask out the branches.

Here (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=32905384) is a technique for turning a white sky blue. Where it affects light areas such as on the birds, you can just paint those out on the selective color layer mask.

Thanks David, I will try that out soon. Great tutorial. For some reason I just can't get the idea of masks and masking into my head. Maybe I'm just too old now.:(

[Roy Priest]

Roy ... meant to say blow the sky !! for high key images just worry about the bird, the sky in the histogram will be blown.

Alfred, Ah, I understand now. Will do that in future for sure.

[David Thomasson]

Thanks David, I will try that out soon. Great tutorial. For some reason I just can't get the idea of masks and masking into my head. Maybe I'm just too old now.:(

Naah, you're not too old. The techniques for building masks can be quite complicated, but the basics of how masks work are quite simple.
To get beyond elementary image editing, you have to work with layers and masks. No way around it.