Canon 50D, 300mm, SS 1/2500, f5.0, ISO 800, HH.
Slightly cropped for composition. No, there is no more room in front. NR, Color Efex tonal contrast and detail extractor.
John. One word: wow. What a great capture. With only a 300mm lens? Were you that close? This is an incredible shot. Was this by chance taken at Conowingo? I was there last month and saw quite a few eagles, but nothing nearly this close or this dramatic of a scene. "HH" I assume is handheld. What does "SS" mean? (sorry I'm still a bit new to the site).
Hi John, excellent action and impact. I do wish there were some canvas on the right! If you have CS5 you might try content-aware fill. I would love to have this one in my collection, well done! The image has a reddish cast to it. I took the liberty of doing some color balance adjustments in PS. [Shadows - cyan/red -5, magenta/green -5, yellow/blue +11] [Midtones - cyan/red -5, magenta/green +6, yellow/blue -2] [Highlights - cyan/red -9, magenta/green 0, yellow/blue 0] I also added a touch of USM sharpening. I hope he had better luck on the next try.
"It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera... they are made with the eye, heart, and head." - Henri Cartier Bresson
1000 words can't descibe your capture as well as that photo does, it's something I would love to hang on my wall
I love Kerry's redo
I took the liberty of extenting right side.
1. Used crop tool, enclosed photo, then pulled middle right side handle to distance i wanted.
2. opened Rectangular marquee tool & selected right side BG from eagle to just inside right side of photo
3. Clicked Edit>Free transform>dragged middle handle to edge of of box>enter>Select>Deselct
I didn't orginate this method, but it was once posted in BPN, and I have used it for years
Thanks for sharing your gem with us
Gus
Last edited by Gus Hallgren; 01-31-2012 at 03:40 PM.
Reason: spelling
I thought I would tell you that this method doesn't always work, for instance if you had vertical lines instead of the horizontal ones in the water, you stretch their thickness and defeats your purpose. However, there is a sure fire way to extent this photo & others like it. Instead of selecting rectangular marquee, you would press Q (Quick Mask). For a good explanation how to do this, get Robert Otoole's APTATS 1, or you can read about how to perform QM in Arties, Digital Basics (free updates) both available at Arties store. Visit: www.BIRDSASART.com. APTATS 2 is also avaible which continues from APTATS 1 with some more incredible tools. (No, I don't get a kickback)
Keep smiling
Gus
Last edited by Gus Hallgren; 01-31-2012 at 03:42 PM.
Reason: spelling
Awesome action photo! Nice exposure and sharpness. I agree with Kerry on reddish cast and like both the reposts. Combining both - removing the reddish cast by Kerry and extending the canvas by Gus - would make it even better.
Yes, Gus, I know of this method of extending canvas. I decided not to do it for I imagined it would distort the image. To me, it looks exactly what was done, the extended area looks stretched and un-natural obviously Photoshopped, and stupid.
Kerry, we had a lot of rain and melted snow which made the river run high and muddy with a red hue. Your cooler re-post completely changes the colors and hues that were present when I took this photo. Some of the light on the bird has been reflected up from the muddy water, hence the reddish warmer hue. A previous post of mine at the same location, different day, does have a cooler more bluish cast because the bird was flying over ice and snow with the blue sky reflecting onto the bird from below. Greenish casts can be seen on birds when photographing birds in green foliage, hence green light on the bird. I tend to keep whatever casts I get from whatever lighting I have on my subjects.
Ronald, thank you for your encouragement. This was taken on the Delaware river at Lackawaxen, Pa. I have been to Conowingo and never got any fishing photos this close. There you will get extremely close to eagles in the trees around the parking lot, which you usually won't get elsewhere.
HH does mean "hand held" and SS, in this instance means "shutter speed".
Fishing bald eagle
Ronald Zigler thanked for this post
