Top 10 of 2016 (#3)
Moving into the top three, the remaining images for 2016 represent some of my favorite times, photographically speaking, for the year. There were lots of good memories made, and I like the images that go along with them, too.
Back in January, I took a long weekend to head up to LeClaire, Iowa to photograph bald eagles fishing the Mississippi River. Wildlife, and particularly bird photography, has never really been my genre of choice, but my good friend Steve convinced me that this would be a great trip. He sure wasn't wrong about that. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but rented a couple of super-telephoto lenses, packed up the photo gear and warm clothes, and headed north.
The first day was gray and pretty uneventful. The eagles were there, but not very active. Saturday was a different story. It was sunny, there were tons of eagles, and they must have really been hungry. What an amazing treat to just watch them swoop down out of a tree to skim the water's surface and snag a meal for themselves. Almost without fail, every time there was a catch, another eagle would try to steal away the fish. It was so much fun to watch this and try to capture the action.
This image was captured at about 2:30 that Saturday afternoon. That usually isn't a great time to be out shooting, but the low angle of the sun and position of the eagle made some pretty good light. By the way, I debated between this shot and a couple of others for the list, but decided this was the one I liked best.
I learned a lot on that trip about photographing birds and anticipating the action. I hope to be back up there again in January 2017 to see what I can capture.
Camera Tech:
Focal length - 400 mm (even at that, this image needed some serious cropping)
Shutter speed - 1/2000th of a second (they were moving pretty fast!)
Aperture - f/8 (good middle of the road and sharp aperture)
ISO - 800 (even at mid-day, needed to boost ISO to keep shutter speed fast)