Bald Eagle Series - Adult in flight and Juvis.

[Canon_Bob]

This is another series I shot earlier this month. Always a beautiful bird to shoot, and thankfully, Florida has quite an ample population if you know where to look.

[Bevb]

Terrific as usual Canon Bob, and as you say these are fabulous birds, and how lucky to have them nearby to photograph, what a wonderful part of the world you must live in, Eagles, Racoons, Painted finches etc etc, a photographers heaven!

[readingr]

Bob,

What lense is this? The pictures are terrific and so sharp.

Roger
Trying to capture wildlife

[Knight]

Great series Bob tack sharp Theres a huge nest at Kennedy Space center ! I missed it the 45 other passengers on the bus did not want to stop lol

[Yarrow]

Nice series...

[Loupey]

Great Scott! What fine images, Bob.

Love the first one - the open beak, the wing position, the tail feathers flaired out, and the detail along the leading edge of the wing - terrific!

Up here, I'd be thrilled to get shots like this of Red-Tailed Hawks. And there getting as common as pigeons it seems

[Canon_Bob]

Thanks for the comments all -

Bevb - Yes, Florida is definitely a birder's paradise. I am having the time of my life shooting here.

redingr - These were shot with the 100-400L on the 1DsMII. I have found that locking the 100-400 down at around 350mm, shooting in IS mode 2, and then pushing the ISO on the 1DsMII to gain speed produces a very nice combination for flight shots. As you can see by the in-focus wingtips, DOF makes a big difference on flight shots. Too many people open the aperture to gain speed for flight shots, thus, leaving portions of the bird blurred (usually the wingtips). I say it's easier to clean up noise than it is to clean up blurriness

[Canon_Bob]

Decided to add a couple more to this series. The bottom one still needs a bit of work, as it was further away, and shot under different conditions. I'm thinking that cloning out the treetops might be better too. Anyway, I think the Eagle carrying the fish is a nice touch.

[Loupey]

The second one is very nice indeed. I, for one, would definitely NOT clone out the branches. First of all, I much prefer "grounding" the subject to give it relative height. Second of all, I personally don't like altering images that much - especially N/W images.

Too many people open the aperture to gain speed for flight shots, thus, leaving portions of the bird blurred (usually the wingtips). I say it's easier to clean up noise than it is to clean up blurriness

Bob, what shutter/aperture combination did you use on these? I tried to pull up your EXIF data but they are not included. I think some of the blurred tips that you are referring to may be motion blur and not DOF related. Some people intentionally like the tips to have some implied motion. Besides, the beating wing of an eagle is something entirely different than, say, a duck, sparrow, or hummingbird

[Canon_Bob]

The second one is very nice indeed. I, for one, would definitely NOT clone out the branches. First of all, I much prefer "grounding" the subject to give it relative height. Second of all, I personally don't like altering images that much - especially N/W images.

I definitely agree with you there. Less is more in N/W photography when it comes to pp.

Bob, what shutter/aperture combination did you use on these? I tried to pull up your EXIF data but they are not included. I think some of the blurred tips that you are referring to may be motion blur and not DOF related. Some people intentionally like the tips to have some implied motion. Besides, the beating wing of an eagle is something entirely different than, say, a duck, sparrow, or hummingbird

Aperture on all was between f/5.6 and f/10, ISO range was from 400 to 640, and shutter speed was 1/2000 to 1/4000. I regularly shoot at ISO 1000 on the 1DsMII. I agree with you in that there are some instances where the blur is desired. However, in MANY cases I see out there, it was not, and it shows. The trick to eliminating unintended blur on flight shots is speed, without sacrificing DOF. Cranking the ISO is the best method for that. That said, however, different cameras have different ISO ceilings. I can easily salvage shots and reduce the noise at ISO 1250 on the 1DsMII. I can't, however, salvage the same shots above ISO 400 on the XTi. Every camera has it's "sweet spot".

BTW - If I process in Capture One Pro, the EXIF tends to be unreadable by software like Opanda. If I do my PP in Adobe PS CS2 or CS3, it shows up fine. I am now using CS3/Lightroom almost exclusively, so most of my stuff shot from now on will have embedded EXIF intact.

[Loupey]

Thanks for the info. That's a HUGE difference in ISO performance between your 1DsMkII and the XTi.

Like your XTi, my 30D has a max usable ISO of 400. That limits my brightest mid-day shooting to 1/500s at f/11 (1/750s if I'm shooting a white/light colored bird) - my typical "go to" manual setting. Still, I consider this step up from my 10D with the max useable ISO of 200 to be, by itself, worth the upgrade.

I've tried some shots at ISO 800, but really horrible IMO. That's a huge advantage of your 1Ds.

I'm eyeing the 500mm f/4L over the 1DsMKII. In an ideal world, both would be nice

[Canon_Bob]

I hear ya. Just for the sake of discussion, heres an experimental shot I took at ISO 3200 with the 1DsMII:



As you can see, even that ISO is usable. ISO 1000 is gravy on the 1DsMII. Word on the street is that the new 1DMIII is even a lot better than the 1DsMII at high ISO. Scary thought!

[Bevb]

This is amazing Canon Bob, do you do any Noise reduction PP on your images?, if not images used at 3200 is amazing! i have the 1D MKllN and find that 640 is max without noise showing, the 1Ds is an amazing camera just couldnt push those extra £,s when i chose the 1D.

[Canon_Bob]

This is amazing Canon Bob, do you do any Noise reduction PP on your images?, if not images used at 3200 is amazing! i have the 1D MKllN and find that 640 is max without noise showing, the 1Ds is an amazing camera just couldnt push those extra £,s when i chose the 1D.

Yes, I usually use Noiseware Pro for images shot at high ISO. There is DEFINITELY some very noticeable noise on anything over ISO 800, but the point is it's very correctable in PP, and allows you to really get some nice speed in otherwise bad light.

[Loupey]

That's an amazingly clean ISO 3200 shot. At this size, the noise in the background is so faint. Looks like a shot at ISO 500/640 on my 30D.

I think the only other person/camera here that might give that level of noise control a run for the money is Readingr with his new 5D. Love to see a real-world side-by-side comparison of those two imaging sensors.

Thanks for the demo, Bob.

[Loupey]

Oh, I forgot to ask you - how close where you to these eagles?

With your full-frame sensor and "only" at 350mm, you had to be pretty close. I've only seen a wild pair once; and the rangers had us roped back at 1/8 mile

[Canon_Bob]

Oh, I forgot to ask you - how close where you to these eagles?

With your full-frame sensor and "only" at 350mm, you had to be pretty close. I've only seen a wild pair once; and the rangers had us roped back at 1/8 mile

I got kind of a lucky break with these. The Juvi above in the pine tree was only about 75 yards away. While I was shooting him, the parents got nervous and flew by at a very close distance, screeching all the way (hence, the open mouth shots). They were trying to get the juvi to fly away with them, but he just wasn't in the mood. They made several passes at close range before the juvi finally flew off with them. I would say the closest flight shot above was probably 50-75 yards. They are a VERY timid bird, and you're probably not going to get much closer than that unless they're either used to you, or you're in a blind. These were a chance encounter during a hike.

BTW - I too would be very interested in a side-by-side comparison to the 5D. I tghink they use the same sensor, and I'd like to consider upgrading my second body from the XTi to the 5D if it performs similar to the 1DsMII, I had been considering the 1DMIII, but I really need either the 500 f/4 L or the 600 f/4 L instead of another really expensive body. Everyone I know that owns a 5D loves it, and I could definitely see hooking up the 1DsMII to the 600L with a Gitzo/Wimberly combinations, and then hanging the 100-400 off the 5D for flight shots, etc.. Maybe we could run our own forum comparison here, and get Readinr and myself to shoot exactly the same settings, and then post unprocessed images for comparison. I think they'll be very similar in performance.