Checking on your catch

[Dvir Barkay]

Decided to see how far I can push my 1DmrkIII and 300/2.8. Went to Conowingo dam on Friday. Light was miserable (you know when the weather channel tells you 60% cloud cover and there isn't a patch of blue skies for 50 miles, but you only learn that after you drove an hour? :) ) The eagles were quite far but lots of action. I tried to see how things would work with the x2TC in such bad light, and to my surprise most shots are in decent focus at least. Image quailty is great as well considering the difficult conditions. Here is a shot after a dive as he is looking back at the fish, I know the body is facing away, but his head is tilted as though its almost parallel. Wish I had a longer lens for these types of shots, as I could use a 600 at f/4 and not have to use such high ISO. This is at ISO 1600 and only 3.8mpx of original after I had to add a stop of exposure in RAW to the original, could be worse right.

1DmrkIII, Canon 300/2.8 L IS with x2TCII, F/7.1, ISO 1600, 1/1600s, 3.8mpx of 10.1, Conowingo Dam, 2014

[Ian McLachlan]

I reckon you did very well considering 2x multiplier and the light.H

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Dvir I believe you did pretty well considering the odds! nice result despite the huge crop. I know that camera as I was my main body for over a year.
With a 600 you would not have to crop so much but my questions is! would you be able to hand hold that heavy rig for long enough to get the shot? may be your answer is yes!
But if you don´t have a lot of opportunities, say, not enough birds to practice with, by the time you are ready to get a good shot there may be no birds, hopefully that´s not your case.
Here where I live there are not too many places where I could practice birds in flight unless they are hummingbirds or tanagers.... not too many raptors and ALL of them are super shy so I don´t have so many choises to practice my birds-in-flight with the 600 :(

[Dvir Barkay]

Dvir I believe you did pretty well considering the odds! nice result despite the huge crop. I know that camera as I was my main body for over a year.
With a 600 you would not have to crop so much but my questions is! would you be able to hand hold that heavy rig for long enough to get the shot? may be your answer is yes!
But if you don´t have a lot of opportunities, say, not enough birds to practice with, by the time you are ready to get a good shot there may be no birds, hopefully that´s not your case.
Here where I live there are not too many places where I could practice birds in flight unless they are hummingbirds or tanagers.... not too many raptors and ALL of them are super shy so I don´t have so many choises to practice my birds-in-flight with the 600 :(

Yes I get what you mean, it takes a lot of practice to get it right. With the old 600 I think it will sit 99% of the time on a gimbal head, I think you can still track flying birds rather well with a gimbal head and all. I would like to be able to handhold the lens as I am a big fan of handholding, but the new 600 will do that better.

[Bill Dix]

Nice frame under the circumstances, Dvir. I love the way they look back to see what they caught. I hope I can do as well tomorrow -- in my case it's a 2-hour drive and the forecast is partly cloudy in the AM. But who knows what it will really be. When I went last year, a heavy morning fog kept the visibility near 0 and kept the eagles from fishing until around 10:30 (with about 30 photographers standing around looking at each other), and then it almost instantly cleared into a harsh sunny day. So you take what you can get.

[Dvir Barkay]

yeah I have never ever been there in my 15 or so times when there was actually great light. At best its always ok.

[Gerald Kelberg]

Any kind of extender on the Mk III is going to slow the AF pretty dramatically, so getting this shot is good going.

Clearly not an ideal pose, but one you can be happy with for now.

Well done! Gerald

[Dvir Barkay]

Any kind of extender on the Mk III is going to slow the AF pretty dramatically, so getting this shot is good going.

Clearly not an ideal pose, but one you can be happy with for now.

Well done! Gerald

Thanks I am actually rather surprised how well it focused in the difficult light, most shots are in good focus like this one, of course good focus does not compensate for bad light, and high ISO and big cropping.