Last year I traveled to Brackendale at this same time to shoot eagles and there were hundreds to be found in a small area feeding on salmon. Bad news was the weather was horrible with snow and rain the whole time, no sun.
This year I decided to try again because we had a great stretch of weather and I only live a few hours south of there. First day no eagles. The locals tell me it was a lousy chum salmon run which equaled way fewer eagles that were more spread out and harder to shoot. The largest count was out at the city dump which was closed to shooting, not that I would have wanted to anyhow. On the second day I found a few fighting over minimal salmon carcass remains and was able to get this shot that came out very sharp. I did get quite a few others but they either required a large crop which reduced quality or were not tack sharp. So although this was not the most active shot I captured it was the sharpest. I'll post some in the outtakes thread later.
I decided that after a few attempts at processing that b/w made this shoot stand out better. The backgound colors were pretty bland and took away from the shot in my opinion. I know I risk the legions who love COLOR & clarity. Hope you aggree with my decision!
Camera settings = aperature priority, multi pattern metering, singel area focus set at AF-C mode, exp. comp set at -1.0EV
Convert in Capture NX
Picture Control = normal
Saturation = normal
Exp. Comp. = +.10
White Bal = daylight - direct sun
Color Bal - contrast = +5
LCH = 0, 247
Levels & Curves = 0, 250
USM = 75, 10, 35
Vignette Control = 50%
Sve as 8 bit TIFF
Noise Ninja to profile and clean image
Save as 8 bit TIFF
PSE6
Crop Square
Layer = Brightness -10 and paint out eagle
Burn tool for edges and corners
Layer = Contrast +10 and paint out eagle
Layer = blur tool at 40% for background
Flatten image
Convert to B/W - portrait mode
Resize
USM = 100, .4, 3
Blur tool at 40% for background
Add black border
Save for web
Save for web
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I like the sidelight, and the and the focus. The left of the image seems to have clipped the wing, either that or it blends into the background. Wish there was some detail there. 7
Wow... great tone control. The left wing *almost* gets lost in the background, so I hope you're not getting clobbered by users with uncalibrated monitors. Kudos for such a great capture of this bird in flight, too.
Great shot. Really works in black and white. Also the only apparently non-Zoo or portrait bald eagle which is really refreshing to see. Nice context and excellent definition. Well done!
i would like there to be more contrast between the wings and the background. you got a great shot of them spread so beautifully but they blend in with the background. there's also a strange line going across one of them.
I don't know what colours there are on the original background but probably your choice for the black and white don't work. the wings of the bird are too much confused with the background. 6
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