Eagle in flight...

Man, I have to say that shooting photos of flying wildlife is HARD!!! I went to the Oregon Zoo today and saw the bird show they did... and they flew quite a few birds out over the audience. I was standing along side the seating area and tried to catch shots as the birds (incl. hawks, vultures and a bald eagle) flew around. I was shooting with my 70-200mm f/4 with the 1.4x... using Tv priority with the shutter set at 1/320th, 800 ISO. These are probably a couple of the only good shots I got... to get it to look this good, took a little help Noise Ninja & Photoshop. For all those out there that shoot birds out in the WILD, my hats off to you... it takes a whole lot of work & patience to get the shot you want.

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That is a beautiful shot

Thanks!!! I would say I was lucky with that one... I'm processing another as we speak. As I said before shooting birds in flight is harder that it looks, I need to practice panning.

Really nice captures here, love the 2nd shot. Wait till you start shooting finchs or swallows lol, they get quite difficult. A good way to get practice is with large birds, I used to practice my panning and tracking skills by the side of a freeway on cars passing by. looks like you did a fine job of it though

Thanks for the advice... I guess you're right about larger birds, the eagle was the slowest flyer of the group. They just had it glide it's way down from a "crow's nest" to the trainer waiting on the stage.

Here are a couple of more photos... one of an owl landing on a perch, and the other of a hawk taking off.

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