My first Bald Eagle

Made a trip to Holla Bend yesterday to see what I could see. Saw 5 bald eagles, two swans, and 3 armadillos. Tried to take some shots of the eagles but really couldn't get close enough to get a good one with my Sigma 12-400 OS on my D300. Then I remembered that I had my 2x teleconverter in the bag and that it would work with that lens...in manual focus. I figured I could manual focus on an eagle in a tree so I set off toward a tree with two eagles in it. Still didn't get as close as I would have liked. The larger eagle started to take off so I did the best I could to capture it with the manual focus and this was the best I got. Even at 800mm (1200 equivalent?) this is still a 100% crop of the photo. I guess I'm gonna have to get my ground blind out and go hang out for the day.

Here's the shot specs...
D300
Sigma 120-400 OS lens with 2x teleconvertor
ISO 400
1/320 sec at F11

For manual focus with a f/11 lens (that's a 5.6 normally right?) it looks great. Eagle looks pretty sharp, its the branches that are blurry. I have to wonder if most AF systems would have got the branches instead?

BTW- how do you like that Sigma 120-400? I read some good things about it in one of the UK photo mags. Wondered how it performed in the real world.

I like the blurred limbs. Not that you have any say so on a cloudy day. Gives it some motion. I've been wanting to get out to Holla Bend and check out the eagles. I know that David Hatfield has been having some fun out there too. I saw a brown eagle eating a fish on Lake Conway last week, but never had a chance to get the lens on him. Good luck with the blind! Can't wait to see the next round of pics.

Darren - I really like the Sigma 120-400. The OS works very well and image quality is good. It seems well built too. The only issue I have with it is that the zoom rotates backwards from all my other lenses. That takes some getting used to - but not too bad.

Zooms like a Canon huh? Weird.

I can't remember what a Canon zooms like. I only shot with a cannon for a few days - Digital Rebel - didn't like it so I took it back and got a Nikon D70. That was 6 years ago. WOW. Cameras sure have advanced since then.

Given the limitations that you describe you came away with a nice image. Compositionally this is nice--I like the pose of the eagle. This sounds like a great location to return to for wildlife photography. Hopefully you will have more success getting closer to the action.

Nice capture given the situation. Matt. My brother Aaron and I were there the same day. We arrived at 7:00 am in hopes of finding thousands of snow geese, but all we found was thick fog. There didn't seem to be much going on at Holla Bend that day...we had better luck shooting birds at Lake Dardanelle.

Isaac. I was the idiot in the white truck who asked Aaron if he was Matthew. I expected some really close shots of Eagles from you two with that big bazooka Aaron was carrying around.

Well nice to (kind of) meet you, Matt. The closest we got to an eagle all day (not really close enough) was the one we were shooting right before you talked to us. Here are a couple of my shots (420mm, 60-70% crops): eagle 1 & eagle 2.

I don't think Aaron got set up in time to get a good shot of the eagle...

Hey Matt, congrats on bagging your first bald eagle. They are so amazing to see in the wild and as you mentioned, difficult to get within close shooting distances. Good work.

Just seeing a Bald Eagle in the wild is a wonderful experience. Capturing it in flight is even better. I am pleased to hear that they seem to be doing well in Hola Bend. Thanks for sharing.

Nice eagle and nice to see you out there. I figured there was a good chance you may be a forum guy... I didn't have the best luck even with the "Sigmonster". That rig with the heavy duty tripod is around 30 pounds, so I'm not so quick with it yet. We'll be back soon though.