Jeanne and I had some fun yesterday afternoon. I wanted to go out and test the latest lens from Sigma to see if I was going to have to send it back. For the most part it performed well and most if not all of the trashed images were as a result of faulty technique on my part or improper camera settings (also my fault.)
We started out about 3:45 pm and I was not looking for eagles. I just wanted to do some test shooting with the Sigma 50 – 500. What we found instead was a group of 5 eagles sitting on the ice trying to share some food. They actually do not play well together when there is food involved. 🙂
I like the first image (even though it is a little soft) because instead of flying over to the fish laying on the ice this eagle did the slip and slide walk over to the fish.
He raised his head a couple of times and the fish was gone. I realize this is not a well composed image but I wanted to include the ducks in the picture. Unfortunately the ducks were looking one direction and the eagle the other.
It wasn’t long until some buddies showed up to share in some of the other food that was on the ice. There was a lot of eagle talk and a lot of action as well. There were some spectacular fight scenes that I captured between three older eagles and a juvenile. Unfortunately by this time my shutter speed was down 1/60 sec (even at ISO 800) so I got a lot of bury black and brown blobs. Once during the tussle the juvenile was on his back about 8 inches off the ground locking talons with the mature eagle on top. I wish I could show you that image. 😦
I shot 820 images (of course with the 11 fps burst rate of the D3 that is an easy thing to do) and of those I kept 200, which isn’t too bad. Of those 200 maybe half will make the second cut but all things considered including all the mistakes I made I’m very happy with the way the lens performed. I just hope it doesn’t freeze up in cold weather like the other one did.
If you like eagle pictures stop by tomorrow and most of the week for that matter. If not (I’m sorry) because that’s what I have a lot of to process for a while.
Enjoy your Sunday. Thanks for stopping by and be careful.
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