It's been a while :) Had to move to scotland to catch an Eagle in flight!

[Peniole]

It's been a really long time since I took a picture. It's been insanely busy. I just checked my last login was Feb 2010! Where does the time go???! Last year I managed to get out and take some pics. Here's literally one from tens that I threw away. Not the fastest lens at 150mm only f4.5 so the wing tips are motion blurred I'm guessing (not DOF surely at that distance?). Handheld tracking left me with a lot of unusable images

EXIF
150mm
f 4.5
ISO 100
exposure time 1/800s

Thanks for any feedback C&C in advance...

 

[Peniole]

He did stay stationary long enough for this shot

 

[Peniole]

Photoshopped for sharpness and colour

 

[Forkie]

They could also do with Photoshopping for brightness

I like both. But in the first one, I'd do something to either have a blue sky or grey sky i.e., getting rid of that cloudline. In the second, I would clone out the foliage at the bottom of the shot and crop in tighter to the top of the bird's head.

Other than that, nice shots and a good way to start to a new home!

 

[Joel_W]

Picture 1 shows great motion, and you sense the power of the Eagle. I do like the composition a lot, but as Forkie said, that weird looking sky needs some work.

Picture 2 is a very strong portrait. Crop some of that dead space on the left, and clone out that little bit of green on the bottom.

 

[Peniole]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll give those a try

 

[Big Mike]

Welcome back.

I'm wondering why you shot these at ISO 100 :scratch:. If you had bumped it up to 200, you would have had a 1/1600 shutter speed. ISO 400 would have given you a 1/3200 shutter speed. That would likely have been fast enough to freeze the wingtips and everything else.

Actually, they are all a little under exposed, so I might suggest using an ISO of 400, but a shutter speed of 1/2000 give or take.

 

[Peniole]

Thanks Big Mike

Once I got home I realised that and was kicking myself for forgetting the ISO . It was my first time tracking a live bird and got caught up in the moment. I had the camera in aperture priority mode as I was taking landscape pictures that day. I just barely managed to swap out my landscape lens for the telephoto and put it in burst mode/continuous autofocus/shutter release priority and I forget the most important setting. Kick Kick Kick!!!

 

[Richb1888]

Haha that "weird" sky is only weird because in Scotland there's hardly ever any blue bits!!

Nice pics btw....#2 is great!!

 

[Peniole]

Haha that "weird" sky is only weird because in Scotland there's hardly ever any blue bits!!

Nice pics btw....#2 is great!!

LOL, so true. Thanks

 

[Infinite_Day]

How'd you get to move to Scotland? I've been trying to figure out how to manage that for over a year Not too bad but you know what is wrong with them it seems. Is this a wild bird or one from one of the falconry exhibitions? Considering how close you managed to get I'm impressed if that's a wild bird!

 

[Peniole]

Sorry for the late reply, been busy. Get paid low enough and you can move anywhere you like:er:. Postdoc pay sucks almost everywhere, so no real choice other than project and location. Exhibition nearby, not wild bird. Was taking pictures around Falkirk when this thing appeared, it strayed away from the exhibition. I just got lucky that the straps weren't showing