R2D2 wrote:
Extremely lucky indeed! Blessed even!
The Baldies have been very scarce in this area the past couple of years. Wish I could be so lucky!
Big congrats too on your new kit. This combination is sure to provide you with a gazillion great photos and memories to come.
May I offer a couple of suggestions? You could get away with a slower shutter speed at this focal length (300mm). 1/3200 would be excellent for BIFs (at full zoom), and even 1/2500 would work at 300mm. This would increase your exposure substantially.
Turn IS off when shooting fast movers (if you haven't already). Add a nice Arca Plateto the lens' foot for a great grip!
And look at adding DxO PL6 to process RAWs (to improve final IQ). Here's an example (if I may), to demonstrate the Deep Prime Noise Reduction...
I can also post a cropped (but not resized) version if you'd like. Truly excellent editing software that can greatly extend a camera's native capabilities.
Thanks for posting! Enjoy your new camera, and I hope your good luck holds!
R2
Very cool, and thanks for the advise!
First, definitely agree on the shutter speed. I literally pulled the camera out for the first time and hadn't even set it up yet. I spotted the eagle in a tree a couple hundred yards away, and not knowing the camera much, I managed to set it to aperture priority at minimum aperture, and just based on the lighting and time of day, I set it to 800 ISO just to be on the safe side. Let it land where it landed, but I'd have been better off with lower ISO....
The autofocus was set to whatever it is set to out of the box. That was fighting me to no end, so I managed to set it to spot autofocus single shot just to keep things simple..
I managed to get a couple of shots off before it took off and managed to capture a couple more in flight. Start to finish about 90 seconds.


