Bald Eagle from above

[Jaedon]

The hot air balloon ride this morning was AMAZING to say the least. If you ever get a chance to do this I thoroughly endorse the idea. We launched at around 6:50am as the sun was just cresting the horizon here in Orlando. But the absolute best part of the trip was being able to look down on birds as we flew over them.

The bad - The following shot was taken into the sun so I had to do a LOT of PP to it to be able to identify the bird as a bald eagle and maintain the sunrise coloration and the details in the mist off the water. The image otherwise is as shot. The only correctons made were to the eagle himself.


The second image had only an exposure adjustment made to it. I shot on thefly from shooting away for mteh sun to shooting into the sun so I over corrected my exposure and shutter speed and it made it a bit more difficult in post.

[Knight]

Totally Awesome , do you have any idea on how high you were ?

[Copy_Kot]

Now that is WAY cool!

[paulnj]

That is such a great perspective and scene.

[Jaedon]

Knight - we were about 300-350 feet up. We stayed low becuse of the winds. If we had gone up much higher we would've missed our landing zone.

It was such an awesome morning. After we landed we were treated to a brunch breakfast by the balloon company and there was a small pond behind the restaurant/hotel. During breakfast we saw another Bald Eagle swoop in and grab a fish.......but my camera was in the car...damnit..lol

[Jaedon]

here is the final edit on the Eagle From Above image.

I had to do a TON of post work to get the whits back into the image. Since the sun was rising behind him it made it a daunting task.

Process -

I cut out the eagle and layered him up
Did a MASSIVE levels adjustment on the eagle layer to bring in the whites.
I then carefully erased all of the grey areas which were supposed to be black and reverted to the layer below for the true colouring
I then erased all of the overblown areas on the edges of the tail and the beak to bring them back to reality.
and lastly I used the blur tool to hide all the eraser marks and rough edges.

I keep getting peopele looking at this image and asking me why it is upside down lol. I guess when you think about it, it IS upside down from the images we are most used to seeing of birds. But since it is from the birds persp[ective and looking down at the ground it makes sense for the world to be inverted. The reflection of the ground on teh mirror calm water is what give the illusion that people are noticing.

So after all of that the difference is subtle from what I originally posted but noticible enough I think to have made it all worthwhile.

[AmberC]

Wow. That is awesome!

[Bevb]

What an experience to be up with the birds! great shots.
Iv been invited up in a microlight to take ariel views of the lakes for the fishing syndicates, but im still abit doubtful.(im a coward if im honest)

[Jaedon]

Any chance you ever get to shoot from above with no glass in the way should not be an opportunity missed. You only have to do it once Bev but you will never regret it. I like the balloon for shooting though because there is no wind. You are moving with the wind so all you feel up there is a slight breeze and the warmth of the 3 million BTU torch over your head.