We sat at a waterhole in the Kgalagadi but for nearly 1,5 h, waiting for this guy to fly off. It was around 40º with the sun killing us! Finally, he decided to leave the waterhole and I got this shot with the droplets still falling of his talons. This is a BIG eagle, can weigh around than 7 kg!
Martial Eagle, Polemaetus bellicosus, Kingdom: Animalia (Animals), Phylum: Chordata (Vertebrates), Class: Aves (Birds), Order: Ciconiiformes (Storklike Birds), "Family: Accipitridae (Vultures, Eagles, Hawks, Harriers, Buzzards, Etc.)", Breëkoparend, Kampfadler, Águia-marcial, Aigle martial, Vechtarend
D300S
600 F4 +1.4 TC
ISO 800
1/1000
F8
0EV
AP
16h08
Congratulations on a great capture; your perseverance and skill
resulted in a fine shot. My only question is what the image would look
like if the hot areas on the legs were toned down a bit, to keep the
eye from straying from the bird's eye to there. Well done!
Hi Ron
Yes you are correct but sadly, my PP skill does not run into fixing that. I can maybe try and select just the leg and multiply fade, but am sure there is better ways of doing so and would love to learn. An hpour later in the day, and Mother Nature would have done it for me -lol
Man, you had patience waiting in that type of sun and heat!! Good timing on your part too. The light is very harsh and this has created quite a contraty image - with both burnt highlights and blocked blacks. The light quality and angle was your single biggest enemy here.
Hi Callie, What a magnificent looking speciman. I am beginning to love these martial eagles more than the other species of eagles. Great timing for the take off, and towards you too. I havent been to Kgalagadi, but I certainly know what 40deg heat feels like. With regarding the shadows and highlights, I hope you dont mind, but I did a few tweaks on your image.
Selected the shadow areas and brought them out by 15%. I dont like to overdo the shadow recovery.
Gave the highlighted areas on the legs a linear burn 3% and burnt them slightly.
Selected the BG, and darkened it using midtones in levels to .88, and ran a slight NR.
Inverse to the bird, and smart sharpened him to 75% radius 0.4.
Removed the rock LRC.
Hi Guys Thank you all for looking and commenting and yes, Bird photographers must be daft to sit and cook, or freeze, in the anticipation of a take-off shot! But yours truly have done it many times - the cooking, not the freezing, as this is Africa.
Hi Stuart
Thanks for the reworked repost and yebo, yes, this is much better! I have tried a similar work flow, and get very much a similar result as you.
I unfortunately have no clue what you mean by "Selected the shadow areas and brought them out by 15%. I don't like to overdo the shadow recovery." I am also clueless on noise reduction, never having employed it. If you could steer me in the right direction, I would appreciate it. I also removed the rock way by means of fading.
Once my Paypal subscription is sorted out, I will be able to upload a repost, methinks.
Last edited by Callie de Wet; 01-10-2010 at 07:42 AM.