The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Woo hoo! It’s an active nest!
After paddling this lake a few times and actually startling one of these two out of a tree so close above my head I could hear the wingbeats, I finally spotted the nest. Like all eagle nests I’ve seen and photographed, it’s in a a white pine. Unlike all those others, I can see and photograph this from shore. So now that there isn’t 3 feet of snow on the road that is unplowed all winter and the really deep mud has dried up some, I got myself over there and after about an hour of waiting, they showed up!
I can’t tell you how excited I am at the prospect of following their breeding season. It’s only about 25 minutes to the lake and because there are a couple of houses on it, some campsites and a public boat launch, the eagles are habituated to us and aren’t nervous that I was around and cursing the fact that I couldn’t find a decent place to set up. I did, but realized I forgot my chair so was kind of bummed out. Still, check out this flyby! The stick its carrying is probably 3 feet long or so.
Specific Feedback
Not the best photo in the world, but Topaz Sharpen made it useable. I made the mistake of not switching into manual mode which I should have done instead of staying in my wildlife custom mode which reverts me back to 1/1600 and auto ISO if the camera goes to sleep, which it did. I have room to bump the ISO so should have closed down the aperture some in order to get them both sharper. Lesson learned for next time! Any other advice is welcome.
Technical Details
Tripod with gimbal head
Lr to up the exposure some, bump up the contrast and do the basics before sending it to Topaz Sharpen where I went with the Motion Blur very Blurry model, but told it to remove less noise and do more sharpening since it isn’t a noisy shot, but the flying bird isn’t as sharp as it could be. I’m amazed it made this useable. It’s a pretty big crop, but I’m happy with it.
You have pretty good depth of field, Kris. The bird on the nest looks quite sharp and the entire tree seems to be in focus. Even the flying eagle looks pretty good. I always want to rent a lift when I see something like this, but haven’t shelled out the dough for one yet. Back in the bad old days when most bird photography had to be done at the nest, they would have built a tower blind-some people even bought their own scaffolding.
Yeah, it would be better if I was much higher, but what can you do? Even though there is another small island nearer to the island with the nest, I don’t think I’ll set up there (using the kayak as ferry) because the angle will be more acute - basically looking right up into the tree. It looks more open from the back so if I get the kayak in the water I’ll see if I can find a spot to steady/beach the boat or get out. Either way I’m happy that the pair is on site and getting on with things.
A difficult shot and pretty well executed. I echo @Dennis_Plank that most of the photo appears to be in focus, especially at 6.3. At least the flying bird gave you an obstruction-free shot. Nice behavioral photo.
Thanks @terryb - M 4/3 cameras have a bit more DOF at all apertures compared to larger sensor formats so I think that helped with this photo. Next time if I have room to push the ISO I will close down the lens a stop or two, especially when the birds are as far apart from each other as they are here. From a bad angle I watched one tuck and place a new stick while the other supervised from a branch off to the side - the distance between them was probably enough to make it tough for the widest aperture on the 400mm end. I think bright partly cloudy or overcast days will be best to get enough light, but not make it difficult to expose for the birds themselves.
Hi Kristen
Must be nice to see Eagle in the open, my city Eagles give you about 10 to 20 second heads up before leave or coming to the nest. The only thing I would look at is lowering the Eagles in the frame. Nice work.
Peter
This is a really good shot! Nice and sharp on both eagles, the one in-flight has a very slight amount of motion blur as you mentioned but it’s not bad at all from where I sit.
I don’t mind the lower perspective, mostly because the story is there even at this angle, maybe even more so.
And it may be an optical illusion but to me the in-flight eagle appears to be flying on by the nest while the perched eagle has a look of: “Hey! Where are you going? The nest is over here!”
Probably just an illusion only to me.
Very nice!
Hope to see more of these two as the season progresses.
Thanks @Merv - I hope that they have a successful season and raise at least one kid if not two. Two is obviously more difficult, but baldies do it often.
The flying bird went past, banked sharply and landed in the nest to the left and behind the perched bird where it proceeded to tuck the stick it brought and then call to the other as if making sure s/he knew what an effort was being made. I have the entire sequence although some of it is difficult to see. I also filmed a little bit of the bird while it was calling, but I still want to play with the audio so the call is louder, but the wind is quieter. I’m no sound editor so it will be another lesson in video editing for me. I really need a better microphone for ambient noise like eagles and other critters. Wind, not so much.
I kind of figured it was something like that. The facial expression on the perched eagle (in my imagination) is priceless.
I very much enjoy recording wildlife sounds, I used to do wedding videos (and stills) and it was very common that they wouldn’t allow any photo, video or audio gear near the bride and groom during the event, so, I bought a long shotgun mic with a dead cat (the dead cat was for the outdoor events). I had a dedicated video camera but I didn’t use the video camera for audio.
I bought a Zoom H4N audio recorder and a Sennheiser MKE 600 Shotgun Microphone, that was the real ticket for quality audio.
It was kind of expensive but it was worth the money at the time, I think the whole rig was something like $800 with the miscellaneous stuff like mic extension poles, stands, etc.
Even though I bought that rig for weddings, I found myself using it a lot for nature sounds.
Thanks Merv. I have seen a review of that mic, but will probably go with a Rode for 1/2 the price. We’ll have to see. In the meantime, here’s a still of the birds post-stick delivery -
Your wish is my command! I was doing a quick and dirty edit on the sound just a few minutes ago. Not my best ever, but I have to say that the stabilization in Davinci Resolve is amazing - this is handheld and MUCH better than the original, unstabilized clip.
Yeah, even the shorter Rode mic would help, the Sennheiser would allow you to hear the eagle preening itself but that’s a bit much for occasional use.
Davinci Resolve is a really good editing program, I use that one myself.
I picked it up when I bought my Blackmagic Pocket Cinema camera. I sold the camera a while back though, I just didn’t use it enough and the still camera I use now does really good at video so I think it was a good decision to sell it.
And to be honest, the cinema camera was a bit overkill “Grand Ideas” and all that
Can’t wait for the sequel where the young ones join the outdoor movie set!
