![\"bald](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/bald-eagle-1032-ron-dudley.jpg\")
1\/1000, f\/8, ISO 500, Canon 40D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS USM, not baited (see caveat in text), set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nThis adult Bald Eagle was coming in to feed on fish in a pond just out of frame at the bottom of the image. The fish (carp) had been killed by the refuge in an effort to control the damage they cause to the wetlands (I suppose whether or not that means the eagles were being baited is open to interpretation…). It was a very cold February morning so the phragmites are heavily frosted and the high early morning\u00a0humidity was similar to thin fog.<\/p>\n
I like the\u00a0photo but sharp eyes will notice that the eagle isn’t quite\u00a0as crisply detailed as I have come to expect from my images. That’s due to several factors:<\/p>\n
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- the atmospheric conditions – all that humidity sure didn’t improve image detail<\/li>\n
- the small file size of the 40D. The image has been cropped to 50% of the original and that didn’t leave me a lot of pixels to work with<\/li>\n
- shooting at f\/8 probably didn’t help. Back then I nearly always shot at f\/8 because I’d read somewhere that the optimum aperture for my lens was f\/8. It makes me\u00a0cringe to think of how many images I screwed up in my ignorance, especially for lack of shutter speed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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![\"northern](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/northern-harrier-9245-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\n1\/1250, f\/8, ISO 500, Canon 40D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
This adult female Northern Harrier was also feeding on killed fish at Farmington. We normally don’t think of harriers as fish-eaters but when it gets very cold at Farmington they do so to survive.<\/p>\n
I’m the poster child for “creature of habit” and once a practice becomes engrained in me I find it difficult to change. This image illustrates two early bad habits of mine:<\/p>\n
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- In the excitement of the moment I never even used to think<\/em> of removing my teleconverter when the birds were mostly too close so I got a lot of images like this one\u00a0that were framed\u00a0much too tight<\/li>\n
- Notice that this image was also shot at f\/8 – not because it may or may not have been the best choice but because it’s what I always did<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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I found it to be instructive (and just a bit nostalgic) to go back and look at some of these older images. Boy, I wish I knew then what I know now!<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s been a very long time since I’ve gone back and looked at some of my earliest images after I started photographing birds. I did so last night and the process was both enlightening and painful<\/p>\n
- Notice that this image was also shot at f\/8 – not because it may or may not have been the best choice but because it’s what I always did<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- In the excitement of the moment I never even used to think<\/em> of removing my teleconverter when the birds were mostly too close so I got a lot of images like this one\u00a0that were framed\u00a0much too tight<\/li>\n