More Homer bald eagle photos

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Bill Hilton - 22 Mar 2004 15:26 GMT

I was up there a couple weeks ago, only had a few hours of decent light but did
OK ... here are four shots from the digital camera, I like the film shots
better but haven't posted any of them yet (another digital advantage, easy to
get jpegs for the web).

http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/eagles_digital/

Bill

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Fred A. Miller - 22 Mar 2004 19:17 GMT

> I was up there a couple weeks ago, only had a few hours of decent light but
> did OK ... here are four shots from the digital camera, I like the film
> shots better but haven't posted any of them yet (another digital advantage,
> easy to get jpegs for the web).
>
> http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/eagles_digital/

NICE work, Bill!

Fred

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Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark) - 24 Mar 2004 04:17 GMT

> I was up there a couple weeks ago, only had a few hours of decent light but did
> OK ... here are four shots from the digital camera, I like the film shots
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
> Bill

Bill,
Beautiful photos. Were all these taken during your
20 minutes or so of sunlight? I assume all with your 500mm,
and Rue windo mount?

Roger

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Bill Hilton - 24 Mar 2004 18:39 GMT

>From: "Roger N. Clark

>Bill,
>Beautiful photos.

Thanks Roger. I sent you a link to these the day I got back from Homer but I
think that's when we were dropping emails.

>Were all these taken during your
>20 minutes or so of sunlight?

I had about 3 hours of good light the first afternoon and got the flight shot
and the immature shot on the beach, where people were tossing frozen herring to
the eagles. The next morning there was sweet diffused light for a short time
(maybe 20-30 minutes) and that's when I got the two closeups, as these birds
ate fish tossed by the Eagle Lady and then, luckily for me as I wasn't allowed
into her compound, perched where I could approach them in the car with the
light behind me. Then the weather closed down again with dull clouds ... I
went out that afternoon and the next morning but didn't shoot a single frame.
I would have stayed if it were snowing but couldn't see the point of shooting
in what I consider bad light.

>I assume all with your 500mm, and Rue window mount?

First one is with the 500 f/4 from the car (Wimberley Sidekick on an A-S B1
with the Rue Groofwin), third one with the 500 and 1.4x from the car, both the
second morning. Flight shot with a 70-200 f/2.8 handheld (exif says 145 mm),
immature bird from a tripod with the 500 as I approached closely on the beach,
where it was perched on a snag after feeding.

I liked the film shots of the birds in flight a bit better since my EOS-3 has
faster autofocus and shorter shutter lag than the 10D, and the film shots had
nice saturation, but the digital had several advantages too, especially quick
feedback, ability to shoot at higher ISO without grain (these were iso 200),
the 1.6x factor is nice for wildlife, and lower contrast is nice for birds with
white heads and black bodies.

I think if I had something like the 1D Mark II, 8 Mpixels with fast autofocus
and 8.5 frames/second, I'd quit using 35 mm film for wildlife, or at least for
birds in flight.

Bill

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H Fang - 09 Jun 2004 09:32 GMT

Nice work indeed

> I was up there a couple weeks ago, only had a few hours of decent light but did
> OK ... here are four shots from the digital camera, I like the film shots
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
> Bill

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Tom Keenan - 10 Jun 2004 03:42 GMT

Bill:
Very nice work. Thanks for sharing. I am interested in exposure
particularly for the flight shot. Did you compensate for exposure or
did you let the 10D just run with evaluative metering. I think Arthur
Morris sometimes recommends metering the sky above the horizon and
setting exposure manually.
Thanks, Tom

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Bill Hilton - 10 Jun 2004 04:33 GMT

>From: tmk@earthlink.net (Tom Keenan)

>Bill:
>Very nice work. Thanks for sharing.

Glad you liked them!

>I am interested in exposure particularly for the flight shot. Did
>you compensate for exposure or did you let the 10D just run
>with evaluative metering.

Evaluative with -0.5 stop compensation, to try to keep from burning out the
white head feathers. I remember checking the histogram to make sure I was as
far right as I could go without clipping. On the head shots of the sitting
birds I liked my EOS-3 better since I could spot meter off the white and open
up enough in manual mode to get *exactly* what I wanted (the 10D doesn't have a
spot mode) but for the flight shots checking the histogram worked well, though
I did burn out a couple of heads with the light at a different angle even with
-0.5.

BTW the flight shot shown was with a 70-200 f/2.8 L at 145 mm, f/5.6 @ 1/760th
sec @ ISO 200 (per the exif data, another nice digital feature). I missed a
lot of flight shots with the digital due to relatively slow AF but this bird
flared out a bit, slowing down enough for me to get him. I mentioned that I
liked the film shots better, mainly because I got better flight shots since the
EOS-3 has faster autofocus than the 10D, but after this trip I bit the bullet
and bought a 1Ds and haven't shot much 35 mm film since. Being able to preview
the shots at night on a laptop is very useful. I'd like to go back next winter
with a 1D Mark II :)

>I think Arthur Morris sometimes recommends metering the sky above
>the horizon and setting exposure manually.

I didn't want to set it manually since the eagles were coming in from different
directions (and different lighting) so I just underexposed a bit. A couple of
the other shots from different angles did burn out on the white feathers so I
didn't do as well as I should have. Art has a useful chart showing how much to
compensate from evaluative metering depending on the subject and I basically
tried to do that (though I don't have the chart).

Bill

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Don - 10 Jun 2004 09:31 GMT

I have Artie's chart and it has improved my exposure no end.

regards

Don from Down Under

> >From: tmk@earthlink.net (Tom Keenan)
>
[quoted text clipped - 37 lines]
>
> Bill

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