Casting a shadow .....

[Ulli Hoeger]

Bald Eagle flying low over a snow covered field,
taken February 4th 2011 in Sheffield Mills, NS Canada

During the winter eagles (and other critters) are fed by local chicken farmers in several locations (see: http://www.eaglens.ca/ , feeding is not limited to the two festival weekends) offering plenty of photo ops.

Nikon D300, Sigma 300mm 2.8 @ f5 and 1/1000s, ISO200, manual exposure

Croped, and minimal processing (sharpening, WB, tone curve) in Lightroom

Thanks for looking.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Ulli - - Like this a lot - love the high key. Love the wing position and just enough separation between the wings and the head.
I think Id be inclined to turn it into a bit more of a pano crop - will accentuate the forward movement of the bird. nice 3D feel also.

Congrats :)

[Johan Kruger]

i would be very proud if this was mine, very well captured Ulli. Think I would have taken more off the bottom.

[Paul Guris]

Nice. The only small thing for me is that maybe you could up the contrast on the bottom of the photo to give the shadow a bit more "oomph".

[John Chardine]

I was there for this weekend as well (and the last- although nowhere near as good as this weekend). I really like this one- the side-on portrait and in particular the wing position are really fine. I agree with Paul, and would put it another way- the image is a little flat but nothing that can't be solved with some post-processing of overall tonality (brighten) and a little boost in saturation.

The image is nice and sharp. The birds were not coming really close so this is impressive with just the 300mm. Well done.

[Ulli Hoeger]

Thanks to for all the hints and pointers. I can visualize some of them already and will for sure give them a try.

Ulli