Bald Eagle

[John Ippolito]

D300
300 2.8 VR (VR off)
f 3.2
1/2500
ISO 400
manual

[Betsie Storm]

John, Very impressive- sharp, eye contact, techs. I especially like the curve formed by the wings and how it all works together to give a feel of the bird in its environment.

[Danny Laredo]

John this is really nice. Love the flight pose you captured here.

[Mital Patel]

i would congratulate you for the shot you have taken. perfect in angle to me. hats off to your dare to turn of VR in such flight shot :). bang on exposure and wing details are visible prety good. huge congrats

[Harshad Barve]

lovely image , nice wing pose and eye contact, techs spot one , wonderful details on wing
As you said VR off , was lens on tripod or handheld ? If handheld was VR off ? I am asking these to learn more from you about your technique, BTW I do not have single BIF image:o
TFS

[Daniel Cadieux]

Great pose and comp. I agree with Betsie about the curving wings...very nice. I also love the inclusion of distant trees at bottom. As posted perhaps a bit oversharpened?

[denise ippolito]

John, Fantastic details and fanned tail. I love the wing positions and the way it is positioned in the frame. Exposure looks perfect. The lovely BG adds alot to the composition IMO. Very well done. I am interested to know why the VR off? Does it help w/ faster focusing?

[Malcolm Benn]

A lovely image .. perfect top side view, banking and tail feather spread, sweet. The background is perfect for this shot. I assume you took off the VR to increase the AF speed although at 1/2500 and f3.2 it was probably pretty darn fast anyway :)

[Marina Scarr]

This is one of the most beautiful wingspreads I have ever seen in an eagle capture. Love how the BG adds to the story. See a bit of sharpening halo. Regardless, this is a killer image.

[Danny J Brown]

Hi John: I agree with everybody else that this is a sweet shot because you have captured the eagle in yet another awesome position of which they seem to have an infinite number.

[James Salywoda]

WOW! sweet pose captured John such a nice shot and setting very pretty.

[Stu Bowie]

John, what an angle. I really like the shape of the wingspread, and interesting to see the white of the head and tail against the dark plumage of the wings. I like this. Well captured.

[Randy Stout]

John:

Excellent composition,great wing spread, head position, background.

I like the taller trees on the left edge to balance the eagle. I might be tempted to clone out the trees right behind the eagles head. The bird does look a bit oversharpened to me as well.

Very nice.

Randy

[Ben Egbert]

Very nice action shot. Love the wing postion and eye contact. The background is ok, but I do see a halo pretty much all around the bird.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

I usually dont post after so many have already been posted because there is frankly nothing much left to say :-) But it wud be a huge disservice to this one to do that. Mind blowing image John. I am sooooo not envying the prey this one has his eyes on.

Send it to BBC/ nature best/ national wildlife federation contests next yr :-)

[David Fletcher]

Top drawer John. Just awesome details and such beauty. Fabulous work.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Cool pose, great light, eye contact and BG. Another vote for a bit less sharpening.

[Doug Brown]

What an incredible pose!!! I would back off on the sharpening a bit, and perhaps the brightness of the bird; the lighting seems more subdued than that. But what a flight pose!

[Bonnie Block]

Great angle of descent! Love images like this with a hint of habitat in the bg. I agree with Doug on sharpening and brightness.--- but a fabulous image.

[Michael Zajac]

Fantastic wing spread and fanned tail. Love the details and the BG.

[arash_hazeghi]

Awesome flight pose against nice BG takes this photo to the very top, I agree with Doug that it is a bit over sharpened, lovely shot Thanks for sharing.

[John Ippolito]

Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions. I appreciate and value your opinions. Seems that I oversharpened a bit when posting the web image
Doug, I didn't brighten the eagle at all, but I do see what you mean.
Denise, Mital, Harshad,Malcom,
The image was made handheld tracking the eagle. When photographing BIF at SS faster than about 1/2000, I almost always turn off the VR using the 300 2.8. I find that if I need to acquire focus on a nearby fast moving bird, or lose the bird and need to reacquire focus, the AF seems somewhat slowed down by panning with the VR-at least on the D300. I shoot shutter release priority. Others here may have a different experience and technique that works as well or better.

[scott benson]

lovely shot.

[paul leverington]

Hi John-

Certainly this is a fantastic pose. As others have mentioned there's definitely too much sharpening, a halo, and lighting seems to have too much contrast on the bird to be in harmony with the rest of the scene, but I wanted to put a vote in for something that has not been mentioned. I feel you need to crop in on this one. The BG is most definitely stealing way too much power from the bird. Trust me that's not easy for me to say as I believe the BG of a picture to be MORE important than the subject in most cases. The problem as I see it is that even though you have stuff on the left for balance, it's no where enough to do the job of the very heavy bird on the right. There's either not enough of it nor has it got any powerful tones--take your pick--(it's a muted scene). It just can't do the job. Plus the eagle is so darned magnificent all on his own that I vote to make him the whole comp--but of course this is still assuming you have enough pixels to do that. So a little off the right and a little more than that off the left I would say--The other stuff brought up is minor and easy, and you got a whopping great shot that would be a little bit more of a whopping great shot.

Paul

[denise ippolito]

John, Thankyou for the info. I will give it a try the next time I am shooting BIF. Hopefully soon!

[Morkel Erasmus]

John your bald eagle shots are always stunning - and this one is no exception. I love the pose and exposure. I dream of visiting Alaska one day soon!!