The Object of Their Affection

[Norm Dulak]

Nikon D300; Nikkor 80-400 mm f/4.5-5.6 VR at 400 mm, hand held
ISO 800, 1/800 sec, f/6.3

When sirens sounded and lights flashed at the Conowingo dam this past Sunday morning, signaling new generator activity, dozens of photographers assembled at Fishermens' Park expected that activity among the eagles would intensify. When that for the most part did not happen, many of the photographers went to plan B. That involved shifting their attention to an eagle that had perched in a small tree between the river and the road.

This image of that eagle is essentially as captured, with the exception of a couple of annoying small branches behind the eagle's head that were removed in PS. Not much could be done about the shadows produced by the morning sun as it shone through the branches of the tree, but I think that the flowering structures of the tree add interest and complement the image of the eagle.

C & C welcome.

Norm Dulak

[Axel Hildebrandt]

This bird looks familiar. :) I like the look-down pose and partially fluffed-up plumage. The high ISO brought out some noise and the whites are partially overexposed.

[Benjamin Kennedy]

I was there on Saturday from sunrise until about noon, and there was unfortunately not much power generation (though the hotline suggested there would be, oh well). There were a few spurts of action somewhat close to the fishing pier though. Glad you had a good day. My 100-400 is usually a bit on the short side there, but there were some bald eagles perched in the trees adjacent to the parking lot.

It looks like you got pretty good detail in your image, and you did a good job of being on the correct (sunlit) side of the bird. I too like the eye contact.

[Norm Dulak]

This bird looks familiar. :) I like the look-down pose and partially fluffed-up plumage. The high ISO brought out some noise and the whites are partially overexposed.

Thanks Axel:

I know that an 800 ISO in a D300 can produce some noise, but I thought it was sufficiently low in this case to not bother Linda to remove it with Topaz DeNoise. And I can't do that myself since I have an older G5 Mac that doesn't handle DeNoise.

I'll enter the modern Mac intel processor world eventually but thank you for your comments in the meantime!

Norm

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Thanks Axel:

I know that an 800 ISO in a D300 can produce some noise, but I thought it was sufficiently low in this case to not bother Linda to remove it with Topaz DeNoise. And I can't do that myself since I have an older G5 Mac that doesn't handle DeNoise.

I'll enter the modern Mac intel processor world eventually but thank you for your comments in the meantime!

Norm

If you have an Apple store nearby, you might want to have a look at the new 27'' iMacs. The monitor is great and they are quite fast.