Juvenile Eagle surprise returns

[Kristian_Wolowidnyk]

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

I’m fortunate enough to live across the street from a lake and provincial park and still be within Edmonton, Ab city limits. After hiking 8 km on a different part of the lake I came home and my wife suggested we go for a short walk as she works from home. When she asked if I was bringing my camera I said no. “you should take your camera”, “No, I’m good”. So that went back and forth and like a dummy I didn’t bring the camera. we walk across the road, down a path and bam… juvenile eagle in a stand of trees on the edge of the lake with 2 adult bald eagles circling over top. As I sprinted back to the house to grab my monopod, camera and rubber boots I heard my wife’s parting words “Did I not tell you to bring your camera”. I set up on the Juvenile, and starting composing the photos, while working exposure with changing light.

Unfortunately in my haste I set up with bad light, and the eagle was nearly backlit. I catch some decent photos and a shot of it flying away. I meet back up up with my wife and tell her about the light and how the whole time I was considering moving to the other side of the stand where the light would have been optimal (100m give or take), but was worried it would take too long moving over there and I thought it was pretty thick to move through.

“Well I’ll get our son off the bus, you go take a look for next time… but its pizza night and its gonna be here soon so dont miss supper”.

I walk around to where the light is way better and low and behold there is a perfect open areawith bits of cover. So I set up and start finding a goot spot where things are composed (The eagles have hung out here in the past)

I frame on the branch and look up from the viewfinder… and who comes back to the exact spot ive composed, the eagle.

Needless to say I didn’t make it home for pizza.

Specific Feedback

Im open to any feedback,

but Im curious if I had dialed down the shutter speed to drop the ISO if it would have resulted in a sharper photo. I had it high to catch it as it came off the branch.

Technical Details

Nikon z6ii, 400mm Z f4.5, 1.4 TC

1/3200 f/6.3 ISO720

Sun was pretty high in the sky at this point

For processing, the photo is pretty heavily cropped and the main things I did was upping the contrast, cooling the overall photo and then using a subject mask to warm the eagle. there is a bit of noise Reduction for the overall photo. Also add white vignette which is a first for me.

I also removed a string which some people flying kites have seemed to litter the area with.

[Diane_Miller]

Excellent persistence!! It paid off. I think you got a nice image given the fairly bright light, and the IQ looks good to me. I like the idea of the crop but would probably take it further to remove the OOF branch. The bird seems to be looking at it but it is far enough away to be a visual distraction.

Did you by chance shoot a burst? You caught the bird with the nictitating membrane closed, and the frame before or after in the burst would likely have had a clear eye.

The SS was probably a good choice to stop any action. I don’t know that camera but I think that ISO should give a clean image. There is wonderful NR software these days to clean up things if needed, but view at 100% to get the best results. The best way to deal with noise is to start with a good exposure so you don’t need to increase it in post, which will reveal noise.

There are still some remnants of the string which will be easy to remove.

[Robena.Sirett]

Well worth cold pizza!

I think you could have used a slower shutter speed, e.g. 1/2000 or 1/2500 to catch the eagle coming off the branch (I get lots of eagles at that speed and light). I learned a lot from the webinar by Julie Steelman on NPN https://community.naturephotographers.network/t/wildlife-action-presented-by-julie-steelman/31684 in case you didn’t get to see it.