Bald Eagle with a snack....

Wetlands Saturday morning....Bald Eagle wrapping up breakfast.

Now THAT's the sort if images I want to capture!

Nice series, Eric!

In the interest of helping the other members of the forum:

What gear? Tripod? Location and time? Any special tips or tricks that enabled you to get these (advanced scouting out of the location, or other plans)?

In terms of critique, the only thing I can comment on is that to my eyes (and on my monitor), they are a tad too contrasy - whites slightly burnt in places, with less shadow detail evident that I'm sure the original images contain.

Thanks for posting!

Don Cohen said:

Nice series, Eric!

In the interest of helping the other members of the forum:

What gear? Tripod? Location and time? Any special tips or tricks that enabled you to get these (advanced scouting out of the location, or other plans)?

In terms of critique, the only thing I can comment on is that to my eyes (and on my monitor), they are a tad too contrasy - whites slightly burnt in places, with less shadow detail evident that I'm sure the original images contain.

Thanks for posting!

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Thanks for the critique.
i used a Nikon D300 with a Nikkor 200-400mm F4, ED, IF, VR lens (attached was a 1.4 t.c as well). I Know these Wetlands well and new exactly were to find the Eagles. I actually was able to get with in 60 feet or so off this awesome Raptor by slowly walking up to his location.
All shots taken very early in the morning after sunrise (somewhere around 7:30 a.m.) with a mono pod!

Thanks for the additional, and helpful, information, Eric.

Eric Diller said:

I Know these Wetlands well and new exactly were to find the Eagles. I actually was able to get with in 60 feet or so off this awesome Raptor by slowly walking up to his location.

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I think this is often a tremendous asset in getting good wildlife shots - knowing the animal's habits and environment. Some excellent photographers I know are former hunters, who have applied the skills they learned in finding/stalking their prey, only now doing a different kind of "shooting"!

Yes, the image is badly clipped in the black and white points. I am sure the other images also suffer from the same issues although I only looked at this one (because I think it's the strongest):



and




There's also a yellow cast on the grey point but that's less important and may also be due to the sunrise light color. I'd clean the whites and blues off the cast though, but that's an artistic issue. The black & white pts are a technical issue.

Also, the image profile is the camera profile. I always recommend Pro Photo for the conversion profile. Finally this profile is in 8 bit. 16 bits is best.

Nice photograph that can be much improved after fixing all these issues

If you post the raw file (or a small DNG) I can post the solution for you

Lovely shots Eric.

Alain, any chance you can elaborate or explain in more detail the processes you're referring to? I checked out your site BTW, magnificent!

Andy brown said:

Lovely shots Eric.

Alain, any chance you can elaborate or explain in more detail the processes you're referring to? I checked out your site BTW, magnificent!

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Thank you

Open the Eagle photo in Photoshop then pull up the curve adjustment dialog box in Photoshop and check "show clipping" . You'll see exactly what I posted. It shows that the image has been converted or processed in such a way as to lose details in shadows and highlights. The solution is to reconvert it to get shadow and hightlight details. If I get the original raw, or a small dng of the raw, I'll do it then post the improved version here.

Thanks very much Alain.
I got a different dialogue box and I fear asking more questions would lead to frustration ( on your part) so I'll wait to see if Eric puts up the RAW file and see where it goes from there.

Andy brown said:

Thanks very much Alain.
I got a different dialogue box and I fear asking more questions would lead to frustration ( on your part) so I'll wait to see if Eric puts up the RAW file and see where it goes from there.

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Which version of Photoshop are you using? In CS 4 there's 2 different curve boxes. You want to use the non-layered one to get the "Show clipping" option. You get it from the Image> adjustment menu. The one in the layer palette doesn't have that option.

You can ask more questions, it's Ok.

ALain

Andy brown said:

Thanks very much Alain.
I got a different dialogue box and I fear asking more questions would lead to frustration ( on your part) so I'll wait to see if Eric puts up the RAW file and see where it goes from there.

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I didn't shot this one in raw, for some reason i was in jpeg setting. Can I convert the jpeg to a png. or psd file?

Eric Diller said:

I didn't shot this one in raw, for some reason i was in jpeg setting. Can I convert the jpeg to a png. or psd file?

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Eric,

You can but it won't do you much good since a lot of image information that could have been captured by your camera was lost when the image was saved in Jpeg by the camera . Converting the jpegs to a tiff or DNG won't bring back this information. It's lost forever...

Your camera, as all digital cameras, shoots in Raw mode all the time but when you set it to save images as jpegs it does an in-camera conversion to jpegs, discards the raw, and saves only the jpeg.

This explains why your image profile is set to "Camera profile 8 bit". I was puzzled by the 8 bit. If it was shot in raw format it would have been 16 bit, even if converted to the camera profile.

If you did any changes to the jpeg after downloading it from the flash card, then post the non-modified jpeg. There may be more information in it than on the ones you previously posted (?).

My recommendation is to shoot in raw from now on. Just say no to jpegs! You lose information by using jpegs that your camera most likely captured.


Alain

"Just say no to jpegs!"

Good advice (I'm going to try to follow it myself) and for some reason it struck my funny bone. Love it.

Rachel Foster said:

"Just say no to jpegs!"

Good advice (I'm going to try to follow it myself) and for some reason it struck my funny bone. Love it.

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Rachel,

Glad you like it. In my workshops it is a staple statement. When we find someone still using jpegs (fewer and fewer do these days, the word is getting out) we have a little celebration ceremony to welcome then to the raw/fine art club. So Cheers to you!

Make sure you don't fall off the wagon and go back to "pegs" ;-)

good information. Thank for the advice......

Eric

Eric Diller said:

good information. Thank for the advice......

Eric

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Eric,

You are welcome. Can you post raw conversions of eagles if you are still photographing them? It would be interesting to see the difference in quality between jpegs and raw!

Alain Briot said:

Eric,

You are welcome. Can you post raw conversions of eagles if you are still photographing them? It would be interesting to see the difference in quality between jpegs and raw!

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Indeed! I will be out looking for them this weekend at the Wetlands...Will be taking these in raw..

Hope that refers to your camera and not your attire! (Sorry, an Americanism there. Not sure if it translates well.)