Aerial Theft

[Mike Landwehr]

The eagle with the advantage is in the act of stealing a fish from the more unfortunate eagle below. This is one frame of an interesting series I have of the encounter. Any C & C appreciated.

7D
70-200 f/2.8 II at 200 mm
1/3200 @ f/7.1
ISO 400
hand held

[John Robinson]

Nothing to say from me Mike. Superb stuff! I reckon any nit picking on my part would be an insult

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Cheers
JohnR

[Frank Schauf]

Nice action scene, Mike.

[Satish Ranadive]

Fully action packed frame. Excellent.

Regards,
Satish.

[gail bisson]

Excellent action going on here! I know how quickly this can happen so congrats on getting the shot.
Really nice to have an excellent head angle on the lower eagle and to see the fish bit.
The image is nice and sharp but still the IQ seems a bit off. Is this a big crop?
I love how "battle weary" these guys look with their missing feathers. Really shows an eagle "rough "life,
Gail

[Mike Landwehr]

Thanks for the feedback, Gail. Much appreciated! It is a rather heavy crop (cropped from 5184 x 3456 to 2222 x 2778 prior to resizing). We had been photographing perched eagles on a sandbar, and I was shooting with the 70-200 without a teleconverter when I spotted the commotion above. I not sure of the correct nomenclature on crops. I usually refer to that as a 65% crop (removed 65% of area), but some call it a 35% crop (35% of area remaining). I imagine that is the source of any reduction in IQ, though post-processing could have contributed, I suppose. Here is another 65% crop, but with less processing (bumped exposure .15 stop and added some fill light during raw conversion, then simply cropped, resized and sharpened).

[Sonny Rostami]

Both Images look great, love the timing and I think the second image has a better IQ. Well Done.

[Jim Crosswell]

Great action you captured in these images Mike! I like the protest scream from the lower eagle, exposure and composition.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Fantastic action you got to witness and photograph! Of the two images my favorite pose is the bottom eagle of the repost...the fully outstretched wings are evenly lit, and I too think the IQ is better on that one. Bad luck on the heavy shadows on the top bird's wings, but the action here is what these images are all about

[arash_hazeghi]

Awesome interaction, love everything. I would take the tighter crop and apply another round of sharpening

well done

[Bob Smith]

Wow, awesome shots.It must take a gunfighter's reflexes to get shots like this.

[keith mitchell]

Mike this really is an excellent action shot, you must be very pleased with this I know I would be thrilled to bits.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Great capture, exciting action. Thank you for sharing.

[Joe Murphy]

You caught some fantastic action with these shots Mike, great work.

[Shantanu Ambulgekar]

no words. Extremely fantastic and great work of timing.
TFS

Regards,
Shantanu