White-tailed Eagle
Feb, 2017Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken during an bird viewing excursion by boat near Svolvær Norway. The weather was great. It helped a lot that the boat was not swaying that much.Time
We were on a winter Hurtigruten Trip to view the extraordinary land- and seascapes and hopefully get a glimpse of northern lights. The sun stays low all day long in early April near the Polar Circle. Even if there is no more midnight sun, it never gets really dark further up north.Lighting
The low sun in winter is already a good start. The snow on the surrounding hills provided great shadow lifting. No human assistant could hold such big reflectors.Equipment
Expecting some fast action at a distance, while on a mostly landscape photography trip, I chose the Nikon D800 and the AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII lens to go on the small boat. The D800 has a very capable AF system contrary to internet bashing, and my second camera, then a D7000 would not have been better. Neither camera provided a terrific burst capability, but that was OK. I am not a machine gunner. I would rather be a photographic sniper, catching the right moment and framing.Inspiration
With animal photos planned, the first thing is getting a technically OK image. There are many variables that remain outside your control. This challenge of coping with the unexpected is part of the fun. Several things came together while panning this dive. The eagle head showed a great fierce profile. There was nice lighting of the underside of the wings and highlighting the claws. And the blurred background contrasts the sharpness of the bird and provides an idea of the territory.Editing
I like to keep images natural and accurate. I do minor cropping to improve the composition of the image. I also moderately optimize the tone curve, taming highlights, fine tune the middle tones, sometimes lift deep shadows and tune contrast and clarity. The image should not appear to be processed. But then, sometimes it is fun, or more than just fun, to break rules.In my camera bag
My go to camera currently is the crop DSLR Nikon D7200 with the well rounded AF-S 16-80mm f/2.8-4 lens. The modest size and weight of this equipment keeps me agile. It does not make me feel already tired, when interesting things show up while traveling or hiking. The judiciously chosen speed of this lens, its image quality and its angles of view, ranging from moderately ultra wide to short tele lens, makes it my preferred walk around lens. Alternative choices tend to lack one stop in lens speed, lack at the wide end, and the ones with bigger zoom range get noticeably heavier and bigger. The 24 M pixel crop camera provides image quality, which I feel is above expectations for middle format film, when carefully taken.Feedback
Think ahead and prepare well. Enjoy the unexpected and take it as a challenge. Sometimes it is good to break rules: first candidate the rule of thirds.
