Portrait of a national icon

[Blue_In_AK]

We just got back from spending a couple of days traveling to Homer, Alaska, about 225 miles southwest of here, where my brother lives. Hundreds of bald eagles come here in the winter and are fed by Homer's "eagle lady" at a feeding station. I got some really great shots, but I'll start out with this one. I loved the way he posed. I took this shot from the truck with the 70-300.

[CC]

1. That is so neat and a great

eagle portrait. Hurry and post more or I will have to wait until tomorrow to see them.

[FM Arouet666]

2. Absolutely great shot.

But s/he looks a bit pissed off. Guess s/he is camera shy. Is your lens IS? If so have you shot with lens that lack the stabilizer and do you notice a difference?

[Blue_In_AK]

8. The lens is IS...

I've only shot it with the IS off when I've used a tripod, which is what Canon recommends. Even with IS, if the lens is extended all the way out, the shots are a bit out of focus, but I was fairly close to this bird, so it worked to prop the lens against the truck window.

[Boo_Radley]

3. Nice shot

How close did you have to get to him? Aren't they pretty dangerous?

[Blue_In_AK]

9. I was maybe about six feet away.

People are not permitted out of their vehicles at this feeding station, so I felt pretty safe. He does have a pretty ferocious glare going on there.

[NV Whino]

4. Wow!

Beautiful!

[Immad2]

5. Beautiful! Excellent shot Blue_In_AK. The new camera agrees with you.

You just get better and better. Was the change from your other camera to the Canon very difficult?

[Blue_In_AK]

10. Changing cameras

took some learning, especially since I usually just shot the Mavica in auto mode. The main thing I've had problems with is exposure ... a lot of the shots I took at first were underexposed, maybe because it's winter and shooting the snow is a little tricky. The other thing I often forget about is resetting the white balance, but that can easily be fixed with the processing programs. I took a whole series of very BLUE sunrises yesterday morning because I forgot to reset from the people pictures I was taking the night before, but the software that came with the camera really took care of the problem. (Thanks to CC pushing me to shoot in RAW.)

[Fovea]

6. Beautiful picture!

But not one I'd want to get with a 28mm lens.

[Blue_In_AK]

7. Here's another one...

Actually, I have some that are much cooler, but I can't get PhotoBucket to make the size right, no matter what I do with resizing the originals. :mad:

[CC]

11. I think that eagle is trying

to tell people it is time for that flag to be retired. Great pic too.

Have you tried resizing in Paintshop? And does it have a save for the web feature? That can really cut down the file size. The few times I forgot to check Photobucket resized mine to about a 2 inch photo so I never just let it resize.

[Blue_In_AK]

12. I tried all different sizes

in PaintShop, but PhotoBucket just wanted them all to be huge. It probably does have a save-to-web feature, I'll have to check that out. What I liked about the flag shot was that the eagle's head was turned the same way the flag was blowing - besides the obvious symbolic value.

[CC]

14. I barely remember paintshop 5

and haven't tried 10. But has to be a place to do it by pixels, like 800 pixel by 600 pixels. Maybe someone on the board with paintshop can tell how. Great pics and I want to see more. Just a tad greedy I guess. And that eagle/flag pic says so many things.

[Blue_In_AK]

17. I've been playing for the last hour or so

trying to get some of my road shots the right size, which I've posted on another thread. Maybe I'll tackle the eagles again. I think you guys would be really impressed with how many of them there are down there and the way they all just kind of hang out together. There's been a fair amount of controversy over the "eagle lady," some people feeling that it's just WRONG for her to feed them, but she's been doing it for years and the fish & game guys just recently refused to tell her to stop, saying it's up to the town of Homer to decide. I'll try to get a couple more of them up sometime this evening.

[intheflow]

15. This shot is surreal.

Not that that's a bad thing! :) The eagle looks disgusted, the flag is tattered--it's the perfect political commentary shot. Very nice shot, Blue. Very nice, indeed.

:thumbsup:

On edit: I guess the first photo's okay, too. :P

[Blue_In_AK]

16. Thanks.

That's kind of the way I looked at it, too. The flag's in tatters, the eagle has turned his back. It just seemed so fitting somehow.

[DS1]

13. I'm so jealous

[ET Awful]

18. Very cool. I got a decent shot of a bald eagle last year, but unlike

you, mine wasn't in the wild, it was in a zoo:



Mine was much easier to shoot since he was unable to really go anywhere.

Yours looks much more fierce and natural.

[GOPFighter]

19. Fantastic shot

I love the detail in the feathers below his beak.

[Maestro]

20. Nice capture!

Here is a bald eagle that I snapped at our local zoo. The poor guy had been shot with a bow and arrow. He now is flightless but alive at our zoo.

[Whoa_Nelly]

21. Wonderful, Blue!!

:thumbsup:

One of my memories of being in AK:

Drove back on a logging road south of Denali National Park.
Heard a strange ::whumph:: ::whumph::
Looked up and there was an eagle about ten feet above me, flapping his wings, flying...
It was humbling to be so close...

[Blue_In_AK]

22. They are certainly impressive...

Here are a couple more shots that I finally got sized right. These two pictures are of the same bunch of birds, the second is just closer in.

[Whoa_Nelly]

23. WOw!

just *WoW*

[qanda]

24. Those are just great

[CC]

25. Great pics.

I love these. I know you said they get fed but still, never seen so many eagles in one place. The more I look the more I see in the pic. Like the one flying at the bottom.

[Maestro]

26. Awesome!!!!!

Just to see all those majestic birds together is amazing! You are very lucky to have such willing subjects.