Bald eagle over thunder lake

I hope you enjoyed my very first, inaugural newsletter last week with the flying wattlebirds at dusk.

Here is another flying bird, a magnificent Bald Eagle that I captured last summer in USA.

SETTINGS: 1/2000 sec shutter speed on a 600mm lens (150-600mm) with aperture and ISO in auto. Animal autofocus using tracking mode - did it work?

Why it’s important: What I love about this image is the power, grace and freedom it represents to me. The diagonal angle of the wings and the way it’s looking at me gives me the chills - if I were a fish or rodent I’d be in mortal danger.

The big PROBLEM with this image is that I missed the focus - the eye is soft. Its talons are pretty sharp but the eye is soft.

Is this shot a throw-away shot or a keeper?

I thought it was a throw-away until recently. Thanks to a handy piece of AI (artificial intelligence) software.

And that’s what this Wildlife Photo of the Week newsletter is all about.

STORY BEHIND THIS IMAGE: Last summer, we flew to the USA to visit friends and family in Colorado and Wisconsin. Brought my long lens and camera with the hopes of catching some wildlife images .

One morning I borrowed a kayak and paddled across Thunder Lake - a small lake, north of Green Bay, Wisconsin. It was a perfectly still, warm summer morning and I was the only person on the lake. I like to get up early and explore. It’s the best part of my day and normally I have it all to myself 😁 

I noticed a resident bald eagle hanging around the outskirts of the lake perched in a tree. I paddled back and asked my father-in-law, Larry if we could use his pontoon to photograph this eagle.

It took us about an hour, trying to find it, but we eventually did on the opposite side of the lake. The eagle was perched in a tall pine tree overlooking the lake.

I asking Larry to reverse the boat move to the left, move to the right so that I could get a ‘clean’ shot of this eagle without and branches in the way. I was really happy with the shot I got and I think everyone else in the boat was starting to get bored with all the moving around to get a better shot. You ever experienced this with non-photographers? 🤨 

And as we started moving away the eagle took off! It flew away from us, did a slow turn and then headed back towards us, and that’s when I got really excited.

You see, I wanted to capture this beautiful creature facing me so that I could see its eye, and I got three shots in a row before the boat sun shield got in the way. My heart racing as it flew away from us, and then I looked at the back of my screen, zoomed into the images to see if they were in focus. Initially one of the three images looked like it was in-focus, but I needed to check it on a larger screen.

When I got back to my computer and had a closer look I realise the focus was slightly off, which was hugely disappointing for me, because for the rest of our time at the lake I didn’t get another shot.

I guess that’s the challenge with wildlife photography… sometimes you only get a couple of seconds where your subject is perfectly lit, facing you with its eyes open and no foliage in the way, and then that window of opportunity disappears, until the next trip or worse - forever! This is the reason I love wildlife photography so much - because it’s such a challenge!

And I screwed up this one chance - or did I?

For months I thought this image was a throw-away, not quite up to my standards where I want the eye to be tack-sharp.

But recently I decided to try out Topaz Photo AI software to sharpen a bird that I photographed at a very high ISO (20,000 ISO) for my latest BootCamp Challenge which is all about bird photography. It worked so well - removing all the noise and sharpening parts of the image that I decided to try this software on my out-of-focus Bald Eagle image.

Check this out…

This software has saved this image, and now I can displayed it with pride.

BIG LESSON: With the latest technology we get a 2nd chance at recovering those one-in-a-lifetime wildlife images that are slightly out-of-focus. Don’t delete them until you’ve tried this out.

Stay inspired.

Brent

P.S. Can I ask you a favour? Please forward this email to any other photographers you know who may be interested in my Wildlife Photo of the Week newsletter.

They can subscribe using this link: https://wildlifephoto.beehiiv.com/subscribe

You’re awesome!