The only bald eagle shot on that page not taken with the 100-400 was the portrait against the black background (my avatar) which was shot off a monopod with a 500mm Nikkor on film. I used a Bush Hawk for all of the others.
Glass is very important. That being said, so is shutter speed. All the flight shots were taken with shutter speeds higher than 1000th of a second to eliminate subject motion softness. In order to get the shutter speeds higher, I used ISO 400 or greater some times. As you increase the ISO, you also increase noise, so software becomes important. They were processed in Photoshop 7.0 for color, cropping and sharpness and then Neat Image for noise reduction.
I don\'t normally use image stabilization for BIF\'s. I try to use the shutter speed to freeze the subject. I do use it in low light or long reach situations with longer lenses and teleconverters to \"stabilize\" any equipment shake.
The \"dull eyes\" you speak of is often overcome by the use of underexposed fill-flash.
My lense selection is normally:
100-400 \"walking around\", large mammals, birds in flight - versatile, moderately sharp
300/4 with or without 1.4x for BIF, bugs, flowers etc - less versatile, sharper
500/4 predators, songbirds, anything from vehicle- least versatile, sharpest
As for cameras, 40D\'s can be had here used for just north of $600, and if your 20D breaks, you might check out Canon\'s \"loyalty program\" for a trade in on a refurbed 50D for $629.
Hope this helps.
Jeff
My complements to Tony and Jason for their fine work!
Nov 09, 2009 at 04:28 PM
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