As I promised in THIS THREAD, we returned this morning to see if we could get closer to the Eagle's nest without disturbing the birds or violating any protection laws. It's a long explanation that you all probably don't care about so I'll just say that we were unsuccessful in getting a closer vantage point where we could still see the nest. We did, however, get close enough to get some shots of the eagles flying. We did not stay very long because we knew we'd been spotted and although we were further than the legal limits for viewing them, we did not want to keep them nervous about our presence.
We had planned the light for viewing the nest, but with them flying I couldn't control the direction so I just took my best shots and tried to deal with it in PP. Also, it was a mostly overcast bright white sky with the sun trying to break out occasionally so dark bird, bright sky. OK enough excuses. Overall, and being the first time I've seen eagles in the wild, I'm actually pretty pleased. But any suggestions on improving the PP or anything else is welcome and appreciated. Even with all the hiking, these are cropped quite a bit.
#1 This had the best light giving the most natural detail with little PP. The "pose" is a little odd and the upper tail is a little bright but nothing I tried in post would bring out any detail there even though the histogram does not show any blown highlights.
#2 Obviously I'd been spotted. Shooting through the trees.
#3 I like that you can tell he/she is calling. Oops I see I need to work on the dirty background. I know how to fix that.
#4 This crop is pretty extreme so it looks pretty over processed but I love the angle of the bird. I may try taking this out of Lightroom to work on it some more.
#5 The angle of the bird put the light under him which helps this one.
#6