Bald Eagle

[Jason G. Harrison]

Its nearly that time of year folks. The annual return of our most majestic and symbolic bird, the Bald Eagle. Soon, there will be great numbers of these along our water ways and I honestly can't wait:D.

This was taken at L&D 24, Clarksville, MO last year. One of my better days last season for Eagles. It did not get above 0 degrees that day, I was there from sun up to sun down, and it was well worth it.:eek::cool::)

This eagle was "berg" hopping...nearly full frame.

D300, 600VR, 1.4tc, ISO 400, f/7.1, 1/5000th SS, -.7EV, VR OFF


Hope you enjoyed, C&C always welcome.

Jason

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Cool pose and eye contact. I might sharpen a bit less, remove the ice above the bird and try to get more details in the blacks, they are partially blocked as presented.

[Jason G. Harrison]

This is one of the images that has a tragic story behind it. During a backup...in the middle of the process a severe storm came in and I got nervous and got rushed. I mistakenly made an error in my settings and the process nuked my Raw files on my Eagle shots and Owl shots! I was and still am sick. I had a few quick conversions to .jpg and that is all I had of them. So this edit is from a .jpg and I "milked" all the data I could out of those darn blacks.

Jason

[david cramer]

Yikes! Sorry to hear about the lost RAW files, Jason. Still, a killer pose in this image.

[RakeshDhareshwar]

Sorry about the data loss . This is a very powerful image !!! Would have taken out the ice behind the bird, though.

[Kiran Poonacha]

Agree with OOF snow, but loved the pose, nice details and light.. congrats.. waiting for the rest.

[Clement Francis]

Axel I love it as it is, you have shown nature in all its splendor here

[Ofer Levy]

I like this a lot! Just needed some levels adjustment. Please let me know what you think.

[Randy Stout]

Jason:

Powerful pose. Exposure issues mentioned.
Some of the blacks are sig. blocked up,as Axel mentioned, and I was not able to retrieve any real detail in them. I do think the overall image could use increased exposure. Adding about 1/2 a stop brought the whites up and gave a bit more detail in the shadow areas that weren't blocked. Ofer's repost does show the increased exposure effect.

Thanks again for sharing. I hope to make it to the might Mississippi this winter to enjoy the eagles!

Randy

[Jason G. Harrison]

Thanks for all the replies and help. I tried the exposure bump but I am at the point that any further manipulation causes IQ degredation. It looks ok for web viewing, but upon closer examination, any further work on the dark areas hurts the image.

Thanks again and next time I will try and add a bit more exposure. Personally, I really like the way the whites look on the head, but I am sure a 1/2 stop more exposure would not have killed that either.

Thanks,

Jason