Banking Fish Eagle

[Stu Bowie]

Its not easy shooting from your car, when you have a large subject criss crossing all over the place. Taken in the Kruger National Park ( where you are not allowed out of your car, except at designated spots ) this Fish Eagle was actually chasing a Hamerkop, trying to steal his food. I have other images of this guy against the sky too, but felt this BG would make this image. Although the light was behind me, and due to the Fish Eagle flying all over the place, the shadows on the underwing couldnt be helped. I also dont feel this is my sharpest image, but Im taking it until I get a better one. Added a small band of canvas top and bottom, and left. At least I didnt cut the wing tips.

Canon 50D
100-400 @ 350mm
1/2000
F/7.1
ISO 500

Exp Comp +0.33
Hand held from the car.

[Ken Watkins]

Stuart,

I would happily take this, my attempts at flying Fish Eagles have been pretty poor to date, not helped by the recently developed trend (for me at least) off them taking off in any direction other then a useful one.

To take this through a car window is pretty amazing, whilst it may not be tecnically perfect it is "real".

[dankearl]

Sharp enough for me. Neat birds and you have a great BG to work with.

[Raymond Lee]

Looks pretty sharp to me! I love the BG and its colour! Great wing position! Nothing you can do about the shadows on the underside of the wing. It is what it is...better than not having a capture at all.

[Robert Holguin]

Excellent shot, great flight pose, sharp, and good placement of the eagle.
Well done.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice banking pose and nice background, Stuart. It is always a challenge to take a flight shot through the car window.

[Randy Stout]

Stuart:

The pose is fine, with wide wing spread, tucked feet, nice angle in frame.

BG colors are indeed very good.

If it is allowed, I wouldn't hesitate to use fill flash under these conditions to help tame the strong light/shadows.

Cheers

Randy

[Stu Bowie]

Stuart:



If it is allowed, I wouldn't hesitate to use fill flash under these conditions to help tame the strong light/shadows.

Cheers

Randy

Thanks Randy. Flash is indeed allowed, but I dont believe it would have reached. I also dont have a better beamer. However, I do agree that fill flash would have helped.

Thanks to everyone else for your feedback. Always appreciated.

[Chris Kotze]

Nice one Stu Excellent banking pose capture and great sharpness

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Stu, excellent angle on this guy. and killer distant BG...very important to get that kind of separation at that aperture-focal length combo. good AF job and liked the wing spread.

[Randy Stout]

Thanks Randy. Flash is indeed allowed, but I dont believe it would have reached. I also dont have a better beamer. However, I do agree that fill flash would have helped.

Thanks to everyone else for your feedback. Always appreciated.

Stuart:

I would look into getting a beamer when possible. I use mine most of the time, to fill in shadows and help the colors pop. You can easily get a small effect (which is all you need here) out quite a ways. Depends on how big of crop your image was of course, but worth a try in the future.

Cheers

Randy

[Daniel Cadieux]

Added a small band of canvas top and bottom, and left. At least I didnt cut the wing tips.

Even with a zoom sometimes it's a discipline to zoom wider isn't it!! I can relate....

Nice pose and love the golden hues of the BG. All the bars in the BG seem to slope down from right to left...I'd experiment with some CW rotation to see if that improves on that. Although not blown, I'd still tone down the whites. Impressive from the car, you don't often have lots of wiggle room to pan without any obstructions so acquistion, focus, and shutter triggering must be done fast!

[Jim Crosswell]

Excellent image under challenging conditions! Well done Stuart!

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

very nicely done from the car. Ditto on getting the better beamer as I love mine too and it's pretty inexpensive ( I'd order extra lenses while your at it.)

[Stu Bowie]

( I'd order extra lenses while your at it.)

Thanks Cheryl. Maybe if I buy a beamer, they will throw in a 500 for free.

To everyone else, thanks a stack for the feedback and kind words.

[denise ippolito]

Stuart, Great pose and back ground. I agree with Daniel about toning down the whites. I never saw one of these.

[arash_hazeghi]

great pose Stu I'd try to recover the black details (as far as you can handle noise), would pull down the highlights a tad too. excellent dynamic pose and great job getting it sharp!

[Stu Bowie]

Denise, Arash, thank you so much.