Bald Eagle Fishing

Gallery: AvianPosted January 22, 2015300 views11 comments

This young Eagle was not successful on this attempt. The fish was actually dropped by a Ring-billed Gull just a split second before this shot. The light wasn't in my favor and I'm surprised that at 1/640 I was able to retain any detail at all. I applied a slight vignette to focus attention on the Eagle.

Thanks for looking; any comments & suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Larger image provided for detail.
Canon 70D
Canon 400mm 5.6
1/640
f/7.1
ISO 640
HH
Processed with Lightroom 5.7, CS5

Comments

11 comments

Comment posted by Luke Ormand on January 22, 2015 at 9:06 PM

Love that you nailed the shot as the bird impacted the water. Really unique image and awesome at just 400mm

Registered on February 4, 2009, 1093 Posts, 7035 Comments

Comment posted by Philip Hodgkins on January 22, 2015 at 10:23 PM

Great, well-timed catch! I believe I would crop out most of the reflection on the right. I also don't think a vignette was necessary. Just a little work and this is an awesome photo!

Registered on July 24, 2006, 2741 Posts, 12349 Comments

Comment posted by Thomas Haney on January 22, 2015 at 11:04 PM

Great shot Steve! I might increase the vignette even a bit more but otherwise I've got no advice, this is wonderful.

Registered on April 7, 2013, 138 Posts, 537 Comments

Comment posted by Mike Ramy on January 23, 2015 at 12:49 AM

Hey Steve,
Boy-O-Boy, I'll bet your heart was pounding during this encounter. What a great job capturing this moment with a perfect splash down, great wing position and that intense concentration on the Eagle's face. You managed excellent detail for hand held at 640 with that wonderful water reflection as a bonus.
With your permission, I ran your large version to see if the image had anything else to offer, I did some adjustments in Topaz Clarity, selected lightening and saturation, adjusted the whites, a slight overall saturation and a Color Adjust HMS (+13 shadows, -7 midtones, -7 highlights).
Well done on this capture and your vignette seems to work for me and I would not crop any of the reflection (you have a well balanced image as is).

Registered on June 16, 2012, 567 Posts, 2809 Comments

Comment posted by Jerry Austin on January 23, 2015 at 7:21 AM

Great timing on this one. I am a big fan of immature bald eagles. There is so much detail and color in the feathers. I too have been caught with too slow a shutter speed when I was photographing perched eagles. When they decided to take off, some of my shots were not stellar. However, you managed a pretty good capture considering everything.

Registered on January 6, 2012, 651 Posts, 3448 Comments

Comment posted by Steve Thompson on January 23, 2015 at 10:40 AM

Thanks to everyone for the comments, they are all appreciated. Mike, the adjustments you made really brought out some tonal qualities that I didn't have. These are the things I try to learn from. I'm sometimes afraid that I'm over processing an image and it will look "over cooked" and lot of times will back off something I should have left alone. Thanks for your time in working the image.

Registered on August 7, 2014, 125 Posts, 2319 Comments

Comment posted by keith mitchell on January 23, 2015 at 2:10 PM

Agree with Mike I bet your heart was pounding, great action with some fine detail shown, you must be very pleased with this Steve.

Keith.

Registered on July 12, 2008, 127 Posts, 1735 Comments

Comment posted by Brian Gatlin on January 23, 2015 at 8:52 PM

great moment to capture, Steve--the moment of impact with spread wings and an intense look. definitely a tough shot, with the light coming from behind the bird, I think that Mike did some nice work to bring out a bit more.

Registered on March 21, 2009, 202 Posts, 4187 Comments

Comment posted by Hans Overduin on January 24, 2015 at 7:45 AM

Amazing moments... Cheers, Hans

Registered on August 31, 2011, 491 Posts, 3807 Comments

Comment posted by Jim Zablotny on January 26, 2015 at 7:52 PM

Hi Steve,

That's a good capture. I do not think that the vignette adds anything to the photo because the subject matter has a lot of strength from the frozen motion.....................Jim

Registered on January 17, 2004, 705 Posts, 3594 Comments

Comment posted by David Haynes on January 27, 2015 at 10:07 PM

Steve,
Awesome capture considering the SS you were using. You're right....With that shutter speed you did very well to get any detail at all. Well done. I think there might be a balance somewhere between your processing and Mikes processing that would work for me. Mikes looks a little over cooked on the coloration particularly the oranges but he did bring out a lot of detail. Like you, I am always worried about taking an image and over doing it.
Excellent point of entry capture here Steve.

Registered on February 20, 2010, 110 Posts, 1511 Comments