I was sitting on a piece of driftwood, listening to a coyote barking and hoping I would get a chance at a photo when these two came flapping up behind me. It was a bit of a scramble to get camera off tripod and get a couple frames. Cropped a bit from right. 50D, 400/5.6 at 5.6, 1/3000, EC+1.5, ISO1600. The batteries for the flash were in the charger at home getting a last boost.
It looks to me like the front bird has a bit of rabbit and the second one wants it. They flew a bit farther, the piece was dropped and the race was over.
Dave
Great sighting to capture two. I like the symmetry of their flight angles, both showing lovely wingspreads. I detect some noise in the wings. Did you recover some detail, and was this a large crop. With a EC of 1.5, you should have managed to capture detail.
agree with Dave a super double, what a lovely bird. definitely some noise and loss of detail - I think some TLC might improve it but I can see the conditions weren't ideal. still a nice shot! opportunity well used.
Hi Dave The listed EC should have produced a good image, with overcast and dark birds I go even more .. the whites in the head are not even close to blown !!!
... btw flash would have had zero effect on the image at that distance and shutter speed even if used one to one !!!
Thank you for the comments. I knew it was more a moment than a photo. and pp'n perhaps beyond my abilities. This is same image as first post with a pass of denoise on down sized image and then USM. This pass certainly removes noise, as well as specks of dirt and natural spotting and colouring. Dave
I like the action captured Dave. It's tough to get everything right when you're scrambling for an unexpected shot. The 50D is unforgiving when you underexpose darks and try to recover them in post-processing. Going with +1.5 EC was a good guess, but clearly not enough for this image. I actually prefer the original to the heavily noise-reduced repost. Thanks for sharing!
Bald Eagles
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