When eagles attack!

[Lyall Bouchard]

Here's another photo taken at the Sheffield Mills Eagle Watch in Nova Scotia yesterday. I clipped the wing of the attacking youngster, but still feel that the action captured has merit as a photo. The adult ended up flat on his back afterwards.

This was captured with my 30D, 100-400 lens at 320mm, ISO 200, 1/3200 sec at F6.3.

All comments are appreciated.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great moment captured. I'm surprised the adult let the youngster bully him. I also like the OOF observer. Too bad about the clipped wings and it needs a bit CW rotation but then you would lose even more of the wings.

[John Chardine]

Hi Lyall. Great to meet you yesterday. Well done capturing this action. Love the snow flying around the feet of the young bird, and the OOF bird looking on. Too bad the adult's head is in shadow. This would be an interesting image to practice adding tips to the primaries of the young bird, after rotating and making a bit more canvas above.

[Arthur Morris]

While you did a good job of timing the shutter release with the peak of the action with the harsh light 90 degrees to the birds you were dead before you pushed the shutter button with zero chance to make even a good image. Sorry to be so harsh but that is the story.

Could you have moved well to your right? You would have missed this image but at least had a chance to get something good thereafter.

[Lyall Bouchard]

Thank you for the comments, gents.

John, I decided to take your advice and see what I could do to add canvas and wingtips to the juvenile eagle. I decided to simply get rid of the tree line and replace it with snow. The original shot wasn't off kilter, but as you may recall, the terrain ran downhill, making it appear not level.

I dug out my copy of Robert O'Tooles Aptats CD and went to work. I know the results aren't up to Robert's high standards, but I'm quite pleased.

I'd be interested to know what you think of the result.

[Arthur Morris]

Wow, I gotta say that this is a huge improvement. Looks a bit sloppy in the ULC. To my eye it needs some CCW rotation (based on the shadows).

[Lyall Bouchard]

Artie,

I wasn't ready to give up on the image, I like it a lot. To answer your first question, no, I couldn't get a much better angle, because the field the eagles are in is off limits, reserved for the eagles. That, and I was enjoying the company of John Chardine, who was shooting right beside me. :-)

You're right about the ULC in the repost. It has to be related to compressing it for the web, because I don't see it on the full size file. I'll clean it up a little more in any case, but won't repost it.

Thanks for the interest.

[John Chardine]

I really like the rework Lyall. You used APTATS to the fullest. No, the lighting was not ideal in the early part of the day, and as Lyall says, nothing you could be done about it. One idea for this image might be to brighten up the shadow areas in between the two birds with a little boost in the Yellow channel to bring out the bills and feet and maybe a slight burn-in as well. Again very well done on the edit!

[Juan Aragonés]

Instead of the fact that the light angle is not the best I like this image a lot because the action is really killer. Composition works fine for me and I do like the OOF bird a lot. :-)