It's My Fish!

D7000 w/Tamron 150-600mm @ 600mm, tripod mounted
ISO equivalent 1,600; f/6.3, 1/320 sec; MM +0.33
Standard CS6 adjustments, slight crop, Topaz DeNoise, cloned out 3 small but distracting, blurred white gulls in bkg

I left home early yesterday for a trip to the Conowingo dam on the Susquehanna river in Maryland, to photograph bald eagles. Water conditions were excellent, with water coursing through 7 turbines, churning the water below and discharging fish. Great fishing prospects for the eagles. But sky that was forecast to be partly sunny was heavily overcast, and it only darkened further over time. And there was a somber, gray background haze. So I set ISO 1,600 on my camera, opened my lens as wide as possible, and hoped for the best. And there was action.

A number of eagles caught fish, many of which were surprisingly dropped as the birds flew with them. A couple of unfortunate great blue herons with fish were forced by thieving eagles to abandon their catches. And then there was the incident captured here, with a struggle in mid-air between a mature and an immature eagle over a little fish. The action happened so quickly that I don't know which eagle actually caught the fish, or which one prevailed in the struggle.

All comments and suggestions are as always most welcome.

Norm

Norm:

Great action here. Good that you can see the adults head, even though he is banking away. The low shutter speed from the poor lighting conditions has hurt your IQ a bit, with some motion blur.
Exposure is just a little hot on the head of the adult.

I like the comp, although I might consider a slight crop off the top.

Cheers

Randy
Must have been great fun to experience this.

Thanks, Randy. I think your analysis is spot on, and I really appreciate it.

Norm

An excellent capture Norm --fully framed and a great action pose. Yes there is a bit of blur but strangely, only in the left tip of the adult birds wing while the other wing tips appear to be almost completely frozen and in focus--I wonder if the one wing tip is blurred b/c it is moving faster than the other wingtips, or could it be that it was outside your DOF.?

IQ bit covered, that. apart it's very well done on capturing the action

Thanks everyone for your comments!

Love the interaction, and agree with Randy's excellent critique.

Thanks, Doug. I always appreciate your input.