White-tailed eagle

[Kalin Botev]

Finally a couple of days shooting vacation. I spent a week in Poland where some white-tailed eagles spend the winter. There was a lot of fun and some nice shots.
Nikon D3
300mm f/2.8 + 1.4 TC
f/4, 1/800s, ISO 1600

PP: A bit of local colour correction.

[John Whaley]

Wow. Awesome shot. I am surprised you got such good focus on a BIF at 1/800 but whatever works.

[Bill Dix]

A handsome flight shot, with good exposure on the underwing, nice flight position, and lovely background.

[Geoff Newhouse]

Great shot of this landing eagle. Would have liked the far wing not to merge with the head but thats a small nitpick.

In regards to the above comment on SS....I find 1/800 is easily enough SS for eagles especially in stall/landing mode like this one. I typically shoot at 1/1200 max for bald eagles but am comfortable down to 1/640 if I use good technique.

TFS
Geoff

[Mike Poole]

Lovely incoming pose with all the flared feathers. I tried pushing the black slider a bit more, and IMHO it gave the image a really nice boost, might be worth a try.

Mike

[William Dickson]

Lovely detail on the bird, and what a great looking facial expression. The BG looks real good with the colours showing off the subject real well. I would loosen the crop a little.

Well done Kalin, great looking image.

Will

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the pose and the BG, I agree with recommendations using a faster SS, here you got lucky and the details came out share enough. the image is noisy though, you may want to apply some NR

TFS

[Kalin Botev]

Hi all,
thanks for the great comments and recommendations. The day was quite gloomy so I had to find the best combination between ISO, SS and aperture. Since I could not open the aperture wider the only option to get some light was to reduce SS as much as I could. Higher ISO would have added a lot more noise.
I will try to play with the black a little as Mike suggested.
I can't loosen the crop, though, this is the full image.
Thanks again.
Kalin

[William Dickson]

Thanks for replying Kalin, adding more canvas should be easy enough with this BG

Will

[Daniel Cadieux]

I agree the image is a bit noisy, and the composition tight, but I love the intense look on the eagle and its landing pose. Good BG too.

[Glenn Conlan]

A few improvements as others suggested will put this over the top, well done

[David Salem]

Great looking frame!! Nice pose and details on this beautiful raptor. Lucky at the slower SS and yes to keeping it up a bit higher if possible.
Yes to a bit of NR too but besides that, killer!!