Tenderness

The challenges and variables photographing this nest were many. I would often wait hours for an adult to bring prey in, but if a car had driven past recently, the dust, amplified by my telephoto, made the shot unusable. Wind direction was paramount. If it was in my face, the eagle flew in with its back to me which meant the prey was not visible in the talons. Other times, at the decisive moment, the sun lit up half the shot and the rest was in deep shadow. At 60 yards, I could not get tack sharp images with the 1.4 teleconverter no matter what I tried. At 45 yards, without dust, I could. I found increasing my ISO in order to increase my depth of field helped. Each evening, I would review my settings, focal length, and results in Bridge so I could make better decisions the following day. While in the field, I was constantly (compulsively) taking test shots, using my loupe and live view to check sharpness and exposure.