Bald Eagle Altercation

[Keith Bauer]

This was captured at Bosque Del Apache on January 2. There were a total of 8 eagles who where all in this location. There is a snow goose down in the weeds that is not visible. In this shot, one of the immature eagles was on the goose. This adult eagle decided it was time for a switch. It came in, the immature tried to defend the food, while the other immature sat there and watched the altercation. (The adult won) Great fun!! This is about a 40% crop. I cropped this way to maintain the pieces of the reflection in the still water. Man, I sure with all the water would have been still :o

Canon 50D
500mm f/4 L IS with 1.4X TC
ISO 400
1/1600 @ f/8

Comments appreciated

[Doug Brown]

You don't get to see stuff like this at the Bosque very often, as you know. The adult looks great! It'd be nice to have eye contact with the mid-air juvenile, but it works as presented. About the only thing I would do is crop off the bottom and the right to make the birds larger in the frame. Congrats!

[Arthur Morris]

Great interaction. The whites look a bit hot. And yes to a big crop from the bottom as DOug suggested.

[Keith Bauer]

Great interaction. The whites look a bit hot.

Hmm.... On my NEC 2690 calibrated (last week) with SpectraView, the whites in the head and tail top out at 230.... the hottest whites in the entire image are at about 244 and those are very small dots when you apply a threshold layer adjustment to see what is there.....

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Keith, Sometimes when whites are well below 255 they can still look either hot or detail-less. That is why God invented Linear Burn. There is a good thread on that in Educational Resources.

[Grady Weed]

I ditto the crop suggestion too. I really like the claws outstretched! Nice battle action here.