Mountain goats and eagles.... Oh, and why I love RAW!

photogmomma

Well, I finally figured out why my photos of animals really aren't that great. It's not so much that I suck, it's that my lens does. I read some reviews (it was a gift so I didn't read them before I got it) and it turns out that it's quite soft and slow. Bummer. (It's my Canon 75-300mm USM IS.) But you know what? It's better than nuthin'! LOL!

Anyway, on my way to the grocery store a few weeks ago - the day after I got my new 5D - I noticed some eagles off to the side. I've shot them a few times, but really liked the ones I got this time. Certainly not amazing, but still much better than what I'd gotten before. Unfortunately, I had my camera set completely wrong and didn't know it until AFTER the bird flew away. Thank goodness I use RAW and I was able to recover the image quite a bit! (I had my WB set wrong and it was set on auto instead of AV or TV.)


Whoops! Before Lightroom and adjustments.


After! Much nicer, eh? Still not perfect, but.... I should probably crop, but wanted to show the full image.

Anyway, a few others I got along the way:

The eagle posing for me.



And here's Mr Mountain Goat posing for me....:wink



And here they are together! (The eagle is in the upper right hand corner.) :ivar

LOL! I love where I live! Pictures have no way of doing it justice!

Thanks for peeking!

Harryb

Good set Andi. 300mm is about the shortest difference practicable for wildlife shooting and there's no crop factor on the 5D either.

Gale

Distance is all of our prob:<(((
A pic of an Eagle is always a keeper.
I rather like seeing them in thier habitat.
Nice
Love the treatment on the last one.
Cool:>)))

Ric Grupe

Well....I have to agree about the 75-300....mine is sitting in the bag. I guess I should get it out....might be useful as a paper weight!

Personally, I think the 30D is better suited to these wildlife shots because of the 1.6 fov crop factor and more frames per second. That being said, the 5D would be a kickass landscape tool. Just my opinion.

I think I could have recovered that same shot if it were a jpeg instead of raw. At least good enough for web display. When shooting wildlife, more shots, and a higher frame rate are more important than the ability to massage an image in post. That is, unless you can get them to pose like Harry does.

Man, I'm full of advice today!


Beautiful country!

photogmomma

Thanks, all! It was fun. I definitely am more of a portrait person, but seeing theses amazing animals just forces me to shoot! !

Love the treatment on the last one.

Thanks! It was so hard to see those teeny tiny goats that I thought it might be fun... It's actually a completely different picture in frame. I was going to do the same with the eagle, but the eagle shot wasn't that much clearer/better than the one you see here.

Ric Grupe wrote:

Well....I have to agree about the 75-300....mine is sitting in the bag. I guess I should get it out....might be useful as a paper weight!

Personally, I think the 30D is better suited to these wildlife shots because of the 1.6 fov crop factor and more frames per second. That being said, the 5D would be a kickass landscape tool. Just my opinion.

I think I could have recovered that same shot if it were a jpeg instead of raw. At least good enough for web display. When shooting wildlife, more shots, and a higher frame rate are more important than the ability to massage an image in post. That is, unless you can get them to pose like Harry does.

Man, I'm full of advice today!


Beautiful country!

Ric, let me know if it works better as a paper weight! !

Yeah, FF does mess up that 1.6x factor. It's taken some major getting used to for me! My favorite lens (50mm 1.4) is now about to be second when I get my 85mm.... ! But for what I do, the 5D made sense. Of course, now I want a good zoom. Ugh!

I only work in RAW because I messed up too many JPGs... Nice ot know that if I set to JPG it might be mostly recoverable, too!

And bring on the advice any time!

Thanks, again, all!

Dick on Aruba

Nice series, I like the mountain goat.

Thanks for sharing.

Dick.