First Day Out in Homer

[Arthur Morris]

Yesterday, Thursday, March 18, was a between-the-IPTs optional day. We had two full boats with two folks from Robert’s just concluded IPT and eight of the ten folks from the jointly-led IPT that starts today. Yesterday was typical Homer: we started with snow and ended with clear skies and sun with pretty much everything else in between. Today was supposed to dawn clear but the weatherman forgot to look out the window so our 8am start was delayed until 10am. About half of the group hung out in the lobby and enjoyed a 30 minutes session with Robert and I as we discussed many fine points of Bald Eagle photography most having to do with autofocus and exposure.

This image was created with the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II lens with the 1.4X III TC (hand held at 280mm) and the EOS-1D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/2500 sec. at f/7.1 set manually.

To see the original (and thus the crop) and to learn how I optimized the image, click here (http://www.birdsasart-blog.com/2011/03/18/first-day-homer-favorite/).

[Charles Scheffold]

Nice shot Artie! Love the detail in the wings and the eye. Great pose as well. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with today!

thanks
Charles

[Randy Stout]

Artie

Glad you are having fun in Alaska.

I like the back wing, diving angle, head and talons, but the near wing pointing at us isn't as effective.
If he had been angled a bit more toward you, so that it opened up the V of his wings a bit more, I think that would have been stronger. The tail would also show more completely.

Look forward to further posts from Homer!!

Randy

[Dumay de Boulle]

Fantastic pose....The light looks great and the detail and exposure on the wings is spot on...I like it!

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Fantastic pose, exposure and details, Artie.
If I may hazard a suggestion: since the bird is diving, I would go with a vertical crop.
Would love to visit Homer some day.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Artie,
Count me in the group not loving the wing angle here. I'm sure you got a ton more though......so that won't be a problem! Did you open up the dark area on the back? Looks a bit cloudy/muddy. Glad to see Homer is still productive.

[Dave Leroy]

A pretty dynamic diving pose.

And thanks for posting the link. It is very interesting to see what extra effort pro's go to squeak a bit more out of a photo especially the work in the head area.

I also like the intense stare of the eagle.

Dave

[Alan Lillich]

Quite honestly, this one doesn't work for me. The light and detail on the wings is great. But my eyes don't see a whole bird. I see the head and left wing, right wing, feet, and tail as 4 separate objects. Maybe it is one of those optical illusion things, my brain isn't putting the geometry together.

[Herb Houghton]

I like the sharpness and detail, but the near wing looks doubled up. I'd prefer a better near wing position.

[Arthur Morris]

Jeez,. and to think that I love this image especially the near wing position that so many are loving to hate :) For me the mostly folded left wing with its triangular shape is pointing to the imagined target below. Plus, I have seen a few eagle images before and made a few more; the fact that this one is unique is another reason that I like it so much.

Thanks all for stopping by.

ps: I can take solace in the fact that four folks described the pose as "great."

[Duane Noblick]

An image I would LOVE to have in my files. Do you have another image showing the Eagles right wing outstreched more? What stikes me most about this image is the head angle, outstretched talons and the banking pose.

[Arthur Morris]

Roman, Here is a JPEG that represents the original at the ACR defaults. The Blacks were opened up a bit from this when I converted it. When I went to sharpen the larger version that I made for Randy, I did notice that all the Blacks needed to be punched up. Thanks for the helpful comments. See the re-post in Pane #14.

[Randy Stout]

Artie:

I wonder if the size that we are viewing the image at on BPN is influencing our perceptions about the pose? Perhaps the effect is different when seen full screen.

Randy

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for the suggestion Randy. Here is a 1024 that incorporated Roman's suggestion. Only additional was lightening the primaries of the near-wing a bit.

[Roman Kurywczak]

works 4 me!

[Pieter de Waal]

Great action pose and feather detail, image nice and sharp. I prefer the the full screen image Arthur, any reason for posting the smaller OP.?

[Arthur Morris]

I was thinking that posting them at 1024 rather than 800 would make it easier for folks to grab them for small prints but I am thinking that with the # of kb the same that it would likely not make a difference... Everyone is liking the large ones so much that I may have to make a new action....

[Art Kornienko]

Looking forward to seeing a lot more of these Artie. Love the diving angle, and curious if the Eagle was going for a fish here. I have to agree with the near wing position as outlined in Randy's comment.