Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, birds in flight, Branta canadensis, Canada Goose, Canon 50D, Huntley Meadows Park, Tamron 150-600mm telephoto on March 1, 2016| 7 Comments »
There were a lot of Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) coming and going at Huntley Meadows Park early yesterday morning. This one was descending rapidly and coming in so fast that it looked like the goose was going to land right on me.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Bald Eagle, birds in flight, eagle, Haliaeetus leucocephalus, Huntley Meadows Park on March 1, 2016| 12 Comments »
I didn’t see where this Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) came from early yesterday morning at Huntley Meadows Park, but suddenly it was overhead at a relatively low altitude. I zoomed back a bit on my telephoto lens, but the eagle still more than filled the frame. At that close range, tracking was difficult and I had trouble keeping the eagle in the viewfinder (I think adrenaline might have been a factor too).
Incredibly, the first shot is an uncropped image. It was shot handheld at 483mm on my crop sensor Canon 50D camera with my trusty Tamron 150-600mm lens. The lighting was not that great, so I was shooting at ISO 1600, which resulted in a somewhat grainy image.
The second shot is one in which I got a bit ahead of the eagle in tracking it and chopped off its body. I liked the eagle’s expression so I cropped off the wide expanse of white sky to the right, turning the image from landscape mode to portrait mode, but otherwise left the framing untouched.
If someone had told me before yesterday that I could fill the frame of an image with a bald eagle in flight, I almost certainly would have laughed at them. Reality continues to amaze me.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 