Clipped Primary Repair

This image was created aboard Jim Neiger's pontoon boat on Lake Blue Cypress on March 21, 2014 at 8:46am on a clear morning right down sun angle with the hand held the Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (with the internal TC engaged at 320mm) and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop as framed: 1/3200 sec. at f/7.1 in Av mode. AWB.

Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF active at the moment of exposure just caught the top of the bird’s head; see the BreezeBrowser screen capture below. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. .

To see the original, learn about the image optimization, and learn a bit about the AF system of the 1D X, see "Room For One More at the Osprey Inn." Be sure to scroll down to see "A Flight Photography Tip That You Have Never Read Anywhere Else..."

Great image with fully extend wings and fanned tail feathers, Arthur. Very nice head angle. Excellent primary repair. I'm seeing a white fringe on leading edge of the wings. This most likely is not due to sharpening or the fringe may also be seen on the trailing edge too. Question Arthur…. I use a Nikon D3s & D700, and more often than not, in the same lighting with blue sky as in your image, I get a white fringe around the bird. I talked with Nikon, sent them an unprocessed image, which was sent to Japan. A month later I received the results, "The fringe is within nikon specks". They never mentioned anything about the fact that there is no information within this white fringe. I you or anyone could shed some light on this I would be grateful.


Geoffrey

Thanks Geoffrey. I have seen those white fringes on a very few RAW files but a close look at this one does not reveal any. I take them as anomalies of digital capture and do not worry much about them. I do not have a real good eye for fine detail.... Honest.

Thanks Arthur. I have to agree with your answer, because no one I've spoken with has come up with a concrete explanation.




Geoffrey

Fantastic sharp image and a great job done on the repair. I don't see a fringe. I have seen many comments where certain people see a fringe and others don't when it seem to come down to the monitor not the image itself.

Very nice, really shows the enormous wing span of these raptors

Spectacular wing spread with fanned tail feathers, great primary repair and lovely HA.
Wonderful IQ.
Love the frame, Arthur Sir.

Regards,
Satish.

Very nicely done Arthur and good work on fixing those clipped feathers

Good wingspread and super job on the whites exposure

I have not come across too many Ospreys but feel the impressive talons on this raptor could be darkened a little bit (painted with black brush on 50% grey or soft light layer) so they stand out more against the white feathers. It may not work but something i would try if this were mine

ATB

Excellent full stretch wing position and nice fanned tail. Well framed. Great work on clipped wing restoration.

Artie, thanks for posting the beautiful repair pictures- too many times I've sent otherwise good images (for me) to the trash bin. While I'm not there yet, these images are helping with the learning curve.

As for the white halos, it's my experience that they can, and do appear on RAW files-even with the settings at Zero (DPP). I believe it's due to extreme edge contrast and I believe it is also visible to the naked eye. As an example, look at the edges of a telegrapgh pole backlit with a brigh blue sky-my eyes see a very fine white edge where they meet, so I would expect digital cameras to capture this.

very nice, perfect exposure. I could not tell which primary you repaired without seeing the orig.

Excellent flight pose and sharp details.