The elation I felt yesterday over the Sigma lens and the fact that it was taking sharp images was quickly dashed today. I will say, that it was a tough day for shooting. Gray overcast skies, brown terrain and very little light so it would have been a challenge for any lens.
I decided to try the eagles’ feeding ground South of Cascade again this afternoon. I should have gone when it was sunny but it just didn’t work out. So by the time Jeanne and I arrived there were lots of eagles there but they were far enough away that I couldn’t get a good focus on them for lack of contrast.
So I got some eagle pictures but they are pretty lame. It’s kind of like going fishing and you catch 3 small fish. Yes you caught some fish but you wouldn’t have them mounted. I needed some thing for the blog today and I have no shame. So this is what you get today.
I had the D3 and the D700 both set on auto ISO and was shooting at 1/1250 sec at f8. I was getting ISO readings of 6,400. Talk about noise. WOW there was a lot and I had to do a lot of noise reduction on each of these. I shot 420 images, culled that down to 42 and there wasn’t a winner in the bunch.
About the only consolation is that I did shoot some images of eagles. That’s about it. I spent some time sneaking up on them this time and that worked well until a guy whipped over on to the shoulder got out of his SUV, slammed the door, raised the rear hatch, grabbed a video camera, took about 30 seconds of video and then slammed both doors and sped off. 😦
Wasn’t much doing after that. My goal is to get at least one good eagle picture this year. I’ve got my work cut out for me, that’s for sure. Enjoy your day. Be careful and that you for reading the blog.
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Are you sure you did not get a good eagle picture? The last one on this blog is just full of energy and group dynamics!
Not sure why you are shooting at such a high shutter speed. Here is something worth trying; drop the speed down to the inverse double of the focal length of the lens (e.g. 50mm = 1/100), leave the aperture at f/8 (maximum sharpness for both the D3 and D700), and see if your ISO is more reasonable while still getting good pics.
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I see your adventure on the positive side:
a) You spent valuable time in the great outdoors.
b) You were practicing long lens shooting technique 420 times!
At least for me it would have been worth the trip.
Don’t give up! 😉
I don’t see the a difference from the way you shot these pictures and what “Art of Photography” has suggested. The 500mm focal lens (I assume you shot at maximum focal length) would have led to 1/1000s. This doesn’t change much.
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