Wedge Tail Eagle in Flight

[kipper]

Had a great day out today finding these beautiful creatures.
Spotted quite a few, and have quite a few shots. Was hard to get the lighting right as there was a fairbit of cloud moving in and so the sun was in/out all the time. I used flash on this shot as the bird (there was three of them) was so close. Will post shooting data soon. The beak is blown out a bit I think. Should of probably dropped down the ambient lighting a bit and used more flash output.


Nikon D70
Nikon 70-200VR
Nikon TC1.7IIE
Nikon SB800

ISO 800
Focal Length 340MM
Shutter 1/500
Aperture F/8
Mode: Aperture
Metering: Spot
Exp Comp: +0.7
Flash Comp: -1.3EV

[avkomp]

good news that you are starting to find them!!

I have to take myself down to the park where Mr levi shoots his kites,
I havent managed to see one yet.
probably just as well because I am still getting the hang of the flight shots.

we went for a harbourside bush walk yesterday and I saw a white bellied sea eagle. It buzzed over us at a height of less than 3 metres, head on also.

The only problem was that yesterday was a non photoday and I had no cameras at all so all I could do is admire it. Probably would have had the 400 mm on anyhow and that would have been too much lens, even at 80mm. oh well.....
Steve

[kipper]

Thanks Avkomp, it has taken me about 2-3 weeks of searching to find them. This last weekend I invested my whole weekend (which was 3 days as I had monday off). The funny thing is that the place I went to, was a place I'd visited the other week but it had just been raining and I couldn't see any so gave up. This time I hung around for an hour and just as I was about to leave they came past. During the day I think I spotted about 8-9 individuals, out of those there were 2-3 pairs. Which is good news for the species I hope. It'd be nice for their numbers to get back up to a good level.

[Oneputt]

Nice one Kipper - on the wing is very good Where I go bass fishing from time to time on a property on the Upper Clarence there is a very good population of wedgies. I think that there numbers are really building up again.

On last years trip up the Cape I also saw a lot sitting on road kill carcases, which unfortunately they will not move off and so get killed themselves.

[mudder]

G'day Daryl,
I think we're gonna have to call you the birdman... This is great, can see lots of detail in the underside of the bird and sharp as too...

Must be a great sight to see...

[birddog114]

G'day Daryl,
I think we're gonna have to call you the birdman... This is great, can see lots of detail in the underside of the bird and sharp as too...

Must be a great sight to see...

Agreed!
Perhaps Gary will add his tittle to his avatar as "The Birdman"

[Oneputt]

I agree The Birdman it should be. Kipper doesn't quite cut it

[kipper]

I said to Nicole I should call myself Hawkeye as I can tend to spot the birds from a mile off.

[birddog114]

I said to Nicole I should call myself Hawkeye as I can tend to spot the birds from a mile off.

You've tried not to have the title of "Birdman"

[kipper]

Out of interest, how does one reduce EV more than -2 in Nikon Capture?

According to NC I haven't blown the highlights so I'm going to try and reduce the EV a bit to get some things to look a bit more natural but I want to go below -2.

[ozimax]

Hey Birdman, wonderful shot of the eagle here, we have a few that live near our place on the Coffs Coast and every day they are soaring, looking for bunnies or whatever...spectacular creatures in every way.

Max

[kipper]

I can't believe so many were killed in the 40s/50s. Stupid farmers.
Little did they realise that these creatures mostly eat bunnies.

[avkomp]

you could also try opening the image in photoshop and duplicating the layer and changing the blend mode from normal (default) to multiply
if that was too dark you can vary the amount of darkening by adjusting the opacity of the copied layer.

of course photoshop cs2 allows exposure adjustment to + or - 20 anyhow in image, adjustments, exposure.

assuming that you have photoshop.

I rarely use nikon capture so cant comment on that.

Steve

[kipper]

Thanks avkomp. I should really change my workflow and use CS2 for opening NEFs and adjusting the raw settings. Haven't got around to it though and keep using NC.

Here is the same shot, tighter cropped and fixed the nits that I had with it.

[Jamie]

Awesome stuff.

I still cant get over the size of these birds when they are up close.

Jamie

[marc]

Excellent shot Darryl!
Now I need to test out my VR on some wedgies,.....
......bit thin on the ground around suburban Sydney, I'm afraid

Cheers
Marc

[kipper]

Well take a drive out to the country. This was only a 30min drive from Melbourne.

Btw, I'm still not convinced about VR for flight shots on the D70. I've had a few people on other forums to turn it off.

[marc]

Darryl, are you saying turn OFF VR?
I thought it depends on your panning technique?

Cheers
Marc

[kipper]

Well I've noticed some wierdness when shooting continuous mode and using flash. Where the subject moves out of the center of the viewfinder. I've raised this point before and it seems to be a problem with the D70. On another nature forum one of the members there says turn it off for flight shots.

[avkomp]

I did some tests with and without vr on some birds and planes last week.
for this test I set the camera on continuous shooting mode.
I smoothly panned on the moving subjects and shot bursts of 3-6 shots.
What I found and this is reflected on other posts and on other forums is that vr can cause the image to jump around in the viewfinder between shots. this can also cause out of focus shots as the subject may not be in the af zone.
Panning and shooting without vr did not cause this issue.
VR is great for following a moving object and taking a single shot.
you get some inherent stability when panning anyhow because of the inertia of the lens moving so at least on the d70 anyhow vr may not be the best option for CONTINUOUS BURST SHOOTING whilst panning. but it works fine when panning to shoot a single shot
Steve

[kipper]

Yep, that's what I've found avkomp too.

[robw25]

kipper
thats a top shot !!! i'm jealous

cheers rob

[kipper]

Tah Rob

Still love the shot of the Wedge-Tail you've got with carrion around it's chops. I've watched a few of them perch here and there on farm properties. One was quite close to the fenceline yesterday, got a few shots and was going to get closer but it flew off.

This is a more sharpened version.