Eagles and Hawks

[Tom Wilson]

Figured this will be a needed topic soon. I figured I would go ahead and get it started. I shot this guy on Woman lake in early June.

[buzzsaw]

Once again, very nice picture!!

[Tom Wilson]

Here's a red tailed hawk I shot less than an hour ago while driving to drop the kids off at day care.

[Steve Foss]

Sweet shots! Here's a rough-legged hawk, dark phase, I shot at Sax-Zim Bog last November. I'll include a couple owl shots from the same place.

[Steve Foss]

Here's an eagle. Nothing to write home about. Don't like it as well as Tom's, but I'm planning a photo excursion to Vermilion early this fall, when the adult and immature eagles come in shallow and feast of spawning whitefish. A dozen eagles in one tree, eagles swooping and scooping everywhere. Ahhhh, we'll see.

Tom, what are you shooting with?

This one came off Moose Lake Road outside Ely, near, as you'd expect, Moose Lake.

[Tom Wilson]

SF,

Nice shots. I absolutely love the B&W of the great gray. That's awesome. Perfect habitat. perfect stealthy look to him. Very awesome.

I have an F5 and a D70. I also have a Coolscan V that I digitally scan all of my slides with. I have an assortment of lenses, but none with any real quality. Sigma's mostly, but I am saving for some good glass. I'm looking at the 200-400VR Nikkor, and the 70-200VR Nikoor in the future. I am first probably setting my sights on the 300 F4 as it is much more affordable right now.

[Steve Foss]

Sigh. Another Nikon guy. Was the eagle digital or scanned film, and, if film, what film? I was strictly Fujichrome Velvia and Sensia before switching to digital.

The great gray has been very popular, especially with last winter's irruption. I like the drama of B&W, so when I capture an image that isn't strongly color dependent, I like to try it out in B&W to see how it suits me. That one is much more sweet B&W than color. Only thing that stands out on a great gray in color is the eyes.

Also, I'd get the big VR before the 300 mm fixed, if you can hold off long enough to save the $. Canon's IS (image stabilizer, as opposed to Nikon's vibration reduction, but the same principal) bought me three stops and opens to f4.5. That makes it faster in practical use than the 300 f4 without VR, and the zoom lets you do SO much more. Well, you know all that, I'm sure. Canon's version, the 100-400 IS, is under $1,400. Now, that's a lot of money, but should be a priority when someone has your eye and ability. Heck, that's only about 75-100 musky lures!!

Also, the biggest difference between the Canon professional level glass and the $150 consumer grade Tamron 70-300 mm macro that I'd been using was not the quality of the image. Believe it or not, today's inexpensive consumer level glass is every bit as good as the top professional glass of 20 years ago, according to the experts I'm reading in the outdoor photo mags. Biggest difference, aside from the obvious IS consideration, is how FAST the 20D drives that 100-400 compared with the Tamron, and, likely, the Sigmas you're using. If I ever have to go back to the Tamron for sports and wildlife photos, I'll slit my throat. That's how much faster the professional grade lenses are.

There were two times before I got the 100-400 and only had the Tamron that I missed fleeting shots of wolves I'd surprised in the wild at 30 to 50 yards. I'dve been able to rip off 3 to 4 RAW images on the 20D and 100-400 before the Tamron even got into focus with the same body. Alas, no wolf shots! Yet!!

You can shoot me an e-mail anytime and we can talk more photography.

Here's a good example of an image that was so-so in color but turned into something special in B&W. I'd been driving up the Echo Trail last mid-summer trying to get to a certain spot in time for the light to be just right, and I saw this in my rear-view mirror. The sun had just peeked over a ridge full of spruce and tamarack behind me, and it glinted strongly on the dew and frost (yes, there was frost last summer up here all 12 month of the year in some places). I call it "tree ghosts" because there are vague images of trees that are subtle and hard to pick out behind the backlit ones. Not sure how it'll play on this screen, because subtleties sometimes are lost at low resolution.

[Tom Wilson]

SF,

Currently I have the Sigma 70-200 HSM, the 170-500 zoom, a nikkor 28mm 2.8, and the 60mm nikkor micro 2.8. I made the statements about the glass, because I have been suffering the inferior quality of the glass since I started shooting. I have had editors actually tell me that I need to invest in better glass, and they had no idea what I was shooting with. I too have been selling my work for a number of years and would like to be able to do it full time one day. I dabble in portrait photography as well, but that is not what I love. It is becoming ever increasingly harder to get published without images of the utmost quality, and I can tell you that without top notch glass it is harder yet. I have many photos in my collection that are good, but I would have given my eye teeth to have shot them with superior glass. Sigma makes a very good lens, and they're HSM lenses are really fast, but not near as fast as the nikkors with AFS. The 300 F4 is one of the sharpest lenses in the nikkor lineup and has the added ability of lightweight. I currently use a 1.4 tele with practically every shot with the 70-200, and I know that I would get much better quality with the fixed 300. I also don't use the zoom as much as one would think when photographing birds, and that is about 90% of what I photograph. I also like the ability that I would be able to use it as a 300 or 420 on the F5, and as a 450 and or 630mm on the D70. The other issue is simply cost--and $1,100.00 is a far, far cry from 5,000.00 for the 200-400VR. I'm happy with what I have now, but I know that my photography will further improve when I have better glass. I looked into Canon as well, and I think Canon has some great cameras, but Nikon is a lens company and that is why I stick with them. I also am a die hard Fuji film user. Velvia, provia, and provia 100F. The eagle was shot with the D70. The mallards I posted were scanned from slide.

well, momma's callin...

Tom W

If you're ever down this way, let me know, it would be nice to meet another struggling photographer.

[The_Duckslayer]

STFCatfish... I love the "tree ghosts"! Awesome, would like to see it hi res. You and Tom have an artists eye that is truly great! Thanks guys, for sharing your talent with those of us without the "knack". Have a good one and N Joy the hunt././Jimbo

[Steve Foss]

Thanks slayer. Half of the fun is sharing what you know, or at least what you think you know.

Tom: So far I've sold mostly to newsprint publications, and with their 180 dpi resolution instead of the 300 for the glossy mags, you can get away with a little more in terms of lack of sharpness. I have many images that I believe are strongly composed but that I won't sell as prints or to the magazines because they're just that little bit short of perfectly sharp, and the more you sharpen in photoshop, the grainier and harsher things become.

Imagine, an editor implying your glass doesn't produce sharp enough images. Should have waited to see what glass you had before making that comment. Sounds to my like you've got some good lenses there and, of course, the Nikkors are beyond reproach.

It'd be fun to meet, and I promise not to preach from the Book of Canon.

[Tom Wilson]

SF,

Ive never tried the newsprint route. I have been published by DU and am currently trying to get some stuff together for Outdoor News. I have had my prints in three different stores, and have had one gallery showing. I would love to pursue it to the full extent, but between a family (2 little ones), a full time job, a full bass tournament schedule, and a love for hunting, I am pretty much whooped. For now, I will continue to consider myself a serious amateur, and sell my work when it happens.

As far as that editor's comments on the glass--I believe it might have been bokeh related.

I also don't mind you preaching Canon. Canon makes great equipment, and if I were buying all new again, I would consider it heavily. I refuse to sell my Nikon equipment now though for peanuts. I love my Nikon cameras, and one day I will have the glass I want. The other thing is that, you are giving others on this site some good info on Canon equipment. Nikon and Canon are really a horse apiece...in reality if you can afford either of their best it is as simple as black or white.

Oh yeah, with the exception of portraits--everything I have sold to date has been from slide film.

Tom W

[Steve Foss]

Well, Outdoor News IS newsprint. I didn't mean just regular daily or weekly newspapers. I've had a couple things in Outdoor News, myself.

But contact Shawn Perich at Northern Wilds, a new tabloid pub out of Hovland that's all about nature and outdoors and recreation. I freelance for him regularly. The pay is decent without being tremendous, and the one-year-old quarterly is going great guns. Last time out they had to bump up the size of the book because demand for ads was very strong.

He needs birds, blooms, fall color, fish, deer, wildlife, people recreating, etc. If you read O.N., you know him, because he's a field editor there with a weekly column. However, be aware that he'll be looking ahead. So his next call will be for the winter edition (the autumn edition is being put together next week), so he'll want shots that reflect winter, and will always be on that cycle, so you can't go out and shoot something today that he can use in the next issue, except in rare circumstances, because the season will be wrong. Gotta dip into the library.

s.p.e.r.i.c.h.-at-b.o.r.e.a.l.o.r.g

Subtract all the periods except for the one before "org" and substitute the correct symbol for the dash and you'll have it. Tell him I sent you and give him half a dozen low-res jpeg examples of your best work, no larger than 400 pixels across.

He's a great sort. I guess I shouldn't introduce you to him, since you'll be competing with me, but if you're going to come over from the dark side and join the Canon Force, you'll need a war chest. The Force, Tom, I can sense the Force strong within you.

[Steve Foss]

Tom, the D70 is the 6 megapixel Nikon, yes? Do you find yourself leaving your film camera in the bag and using the digital more and more? Much has been made over the last few years over the comparison between color saturation and sharpenss and all that between digital and film. I find that digital, particularly shot RAW, is every bit as good as film. What do you think on that?

[Tom Wilson]

SF,

The Nikon D70 is a 6.1 megapixel camera. Too many people put way too much emphasis on the megapixel count without fulling understanding how the sensors work and how the size and quality of the sensor are what makes the camera great..not just the number of megapixels. As you know with shooting digital there are a few limitations that one does not have with shooting film. I love digital, but I don't think I'll ever give up film. I have enlarged the photos from my D70 to 20x30 and they look very nice, however, if I need a print that big or larger, and I know it ahead of time, I will definitely shoot slide film. DU currently still only accepts slide film, and most of my hunting photography is still done with slide film. The cool thing about digital is that after shooting slides for so long, the exposure latitude of digital is almost exactly that of slide film. The difference being one of the advantages of digital. Underexpose a digital photo by a half stop and adjust it later. Underexpose a slide by a half stop and throw it away. A good lab can burn it a little, but for the most part 1/3 stop either way is about all you get in either direction. On the other side of the coin, overexpose slide film by a half stop and the lab can fix it, overexpose digital by a half stop and throw it away--blown whites, and bright spots. I am not impressed with digitals capabilities when it comes to super bright light (shooting sunrise and sunsets in particular), but when you factor in the cost of film, the cost of developing, and the travel and or postage time--digital is definitely the way of the future, and it will just keep getting better. I can't wait to one day trade the D70 up for the D2X, but lenses come first. This is my second D70. I got this one last week. The first one had 37,000+ actuations on it when I dropped it in the lake. Most of those photos were taken at horse shows as I was doing that for a year and I averaged 1,600 photos per show, and I did ten shows last year.

I do think the color and saturation is great with digital, but there is always some degree of computer work needed to adjust the photos to make them great. You can get good photos straight out of the camera, but publishable or printable photos almost always take adjustments. This takes time on the computer--whereas slide film has that color and saturation built right into the film. Take a look at the first two mallard photos in my mallard post and you will confirm what I mean. The photos after that are all digital, and even with adjustments they just don't have that color. I am not the greatest with my Photoshop skills, but the color has to be there to start with. Digital is great, but the color spectrum is just not there yet to match film, but it is great out of most of the SLR digitals that are currently out there. The other thing goes back to size and pixel count, effectively for digital to match slide film--it would need to be around 27 Megapixel.

One of the really great things about digital is being able to switch film speeds on the fly. This is something I love, as light is never the same for a whole day of shooting. Also being able to change white balance is huge--much less expensive than filters. Digital is great, and I love it, and most of the time that is what you will find in my hand now, but I will not be giving up film, I love that too, and it has it's place.

I don't know if you've ever seen his site..but Ken Rockwell's HSOforum discusses so much about digital it is a must read for anyone thinking about getting a camera. He is a Nikon guy, but discusses, reviews, and comments about almost all Canon gear as well. His reviews are spot on and he has many, many articles about everything digtal including pixel size and count, and how film and digital differ. I recommend everyone go to his HSOforum. It is simply his name then .com

And finally Raw is absolutely the way to go. The only time I shoot with jpegs, is when I'm shooting the kids or something that I know I won't need to adjust.

Tom W

[Tom Wilson]

Here's another Red Tailed that I got earlier this year. He was pretty beat up...

[Steve Foss]

Tom: Yep, I'm with you on all that. Aside from its speed, the thing I like best about the 20D compared with the original Rebel is the better sensor. Not just the increase in megapixels, which is one but not the key factor, but the reduction in noise and the ability to select a more vivid color setting.

Shooting Raw, I've been able to almost exactly duplicate a scanned Velvia slide of the same subject shot in the same light by switching out cameras on the tripod. That's equally saturated and almost impossible to tell apart. You're right, it DOES take futzing to get a digital photo print-ready, and it takes a lot more futzing to work with RAW.

However, I'm able to shoot RAW with the 20D and make prints to 20 x 30 inches that are very sharp, using Photoshop's interpolation feature. I know you can make prints off slides bigger than that, but I don't know how much bigger. The local famous nature photographer has an image or two in his gallery made a good bit larger than 20x30 off one of Nikon's early 5 megpixel cameras before he switched to Canon. Canon's largest SLR sensor is 16.7 megapixels, and it is a full-sized sensor with no coversion factor. I haven't checked this out, though perhaps I should ask the local famous guy who has a couple of the most advanced Canon digitals just how large he can take a 16.7 Mp RAW image. I'd bet it's quite a bit bigger than I can go with the 20D, and I believe it's bigger than a slide can go, that you could wallpaper a smallish wall with a single image. Most of the really big enlargements I've seen off Velvia and Kodachrome have quite a blurred or grainy look to me. I've gotta check out more on that, too many things I don't know about it.

Anyway, I'm making this discussion overly technical, and that's probably not to the benefit of anyone here, so enough, and on with the birding!

One final note. Outdoor Photographer magazine says that the number of glossy mags accepting digital is increasing at a huge rate. One of these days . . .

[Steve Foss]

Here's a good example of a broad-winged hawk that was sharp enough for the 180 dpi of newsprint but not sharp enough to sell professionally or for the 300 dpi glossy mags. And it was simply my technique. I was shooting faster than 1/300 with the image stabilizer and had the car off and the lens securely on the window. I just twitced the camera too much when I shot, and that's what you get.

[Tom Wilson]

Here's a few taken in January of this year near Wabasha!

[Tom Wilson]

here's one from the zoo on Sunday

[hobbydog]

Not too many eagle pics in my collection...the first one with my cheapo lens, got lucky while fishing and caught him coming out of the tree.

Minnesota river eagle.