Baldy

[Herb Houghton]

Here's an adult bald eagle in a tree after preening himself. I was unsure about leaving the feather by the beak. upper Delaware River. 1D mark IV, 800 f5.6 + 1.4X II, iso 200, f13, 1/30 shot from vehicle window mount, ballhead, sidekick. TFL

Herb

[stuart wanuck]

like it a lot feather ok great colors and sharp

[Dan Busby]

Herb - you captured a great expression on this bird and have nicely retained good detail and contrast. The feather is fine with me. BG is a bit busy for me but the bird retains its dominance so it's a keeper in my world.

[James Salywoda]

Gorgeous! Even though the bg is a bit busy it has very nice appeal and the Eagle looks great.

[Stu Bowie]

Excellent feather detail Herb, and overall nice and sharp. The BG is a tad busy, but the detail from the eagle wins hands down.

[Charles Scheffold]

Nice head angle and feather detail. Sharp for 1/30s! I agree that the BG is a bit busy. I would probably clone out the small bright stick on the right side of the head.

Charles

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Herb, very nice details. lots of character in the tree he is perched on.

I find it quite tight though. needs room both at top and bottom...more at top. choosing f-stop must have been tricky. You stop down, you get better BG blur but then the branch jutting out gets blurred.... glad you didn't do that :-) good call on f-13 although you had very little light, looks like.

Going vertical with wide-open aperture would have been another option....

[Herb Houghton]

Thanks for all of the comments. As far as crop, I didn't have much more room below the bird. I only have center point AF when the tele is attached, and I put it on the bird's eye, which left little room below the tail in the image. I guess I could have shot manual focus with live view at 10X with remote to give more room below the bird or put the center AF on the shoulder, but I find the head gets soft sometimes that way.

[Charles Scheffold]

Thanks for all of the comments. As far as crop, I didn't have much more room below the bird. I only have center point AF when the tele is attached, and I put it on the bird's eye, which left little room below the tail in the image. I guess I could have shot manual focus with live view at 10X with remote to give more room below the bird or put the center AF on the shoulder, but I find the head gets soft sometimes that way.

Herb,

Just a side note - have you ever tried using back button focusing? There's a custom function that allows you to remove the AF from the shutter button. You use the AF ON button to focus, recompose, and press the shutter as normal. Particularly useful with stationary subjects, especially with the tele on the 800/5.6 where you are limited to the center point.

I tried it for the first time a few years back and now I've got all of my bodies set up this way.

thanks
Charles