# Bald Eagle



## BrentC (May 29, 2017)

So last week I was on an African lion safari....hmm, let me rephrase that, last week I went to African Lion Safari.   About a hour from where I live.  Damn I wish I was actually in Africa.   They had birds of prey demonstrations among other animals.   I took a ton of photos  which I will post throughout the next couple of weeks.

I wish I could have gone to a second show of the birds of prey so I could position myself better and I would know where the birds are coming from and where they would go but did not have the chance.  I also realized I still need a lot of practice.

Anyways here are some of the Bald Eagle.  Sorry for all the pics.

1.



Bald Eagle by Brent Cameron, on Flickr

2.



Bald Eagle by Brent Cameron, on Flickr

3.



Bald Eagle by Brent Cameron, on Flickr

4.



Bald Eagle by Brent Cameron, on Flickr

5.



Bald Eagle by Brent Cameron, on Flickr

6.  Yes I cloned something out on this one very badly.




Bald Eagle by Brent Cameron, on Flickr

7.



Bald Eagle by Brent Cameron, on Flickr

8.



Bald Eagle by Brent Cameron, on Flickr


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## jcdeboever (May 29, 2017)

Super nice. Great exposure.


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## zombiesniper (May 29, 2017)

Great set.

Always loved the feather pattern of a Bald Eagle.


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## Dean_Gretsch (May 29, 2017)

_*If*_ I played the lottery, and _*if*_  I won, an African Safari would be one of the first on my to-do list. Looking forward to more from this. Nicely done!


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## ZombiesniperJr (May 29, 2017)

Nice set


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## baturn (May 29, 2017)

Very nice! Particularly #5.


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## John Hunt (May 30, 2017)

Very nice set! What autofocus settings are you using?


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## birdbonkers84 (May 30, 2017)

Great set, beautiful bald eagle, those portrait shots are lovely!


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## goooner (May 30, 2017)

Great set!


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## BrentC (May 30, 2017)

jcdeboever said:


> Super nice. Great exposure.





zombiesniper said:


> Great set.
> 
> Always loved the feather pattern of a Bald Eagle.





Dean_Gretsch said:


> _*If*_ I played the lottery, and _*if*_  I won, an African Safari would be one of the first on my to-do list. Looking forward to more from this. Nicely done!





ZombiesniperJr said:


> Nice set





baturn said:


> Very nice! Particularly #5.





goooner said:


> Great set!




Thanks guys!


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## BrentC (May 30, 2017)

Coull3d said:


> Great set, beautiful bald eagle, those portrait shots are lovely!



Thanks Mark!


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## BrentC (May 30, 2017)

John Hunt said:


> Very nice set! What autofocus settings are you using?



Thanks John.  For the stills I tend to switch between S-AF and C-AF depending on the situation, I find that S-AF gives more accurate live histogram and blinkies than C-AF.   But for action and bif's and what I used for all these shots was C-AF, single AF point and Sequential Low reduced to 10fps.


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## BrentC (May 30, 2017)

Can someone tell me if its possible to do a good job of cloning out the water barrel in picture #7 and have it look seamless with the oof grass in the BG?  In #6 I did a quick and dirty clone out of the handlers leg on the left side.  Its very noticeable and I don't know how to blend the BG in better.   My PS skills are not very good, does someone know of a good tutorial specifically for that kind of editing?


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## Gary A. (May 30, 2017)

Very nice, especially the portraits.  Man, Bald Eagles always seem to have constipation.


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## HavToNo (May 30, 2017)

Fantastic shots Brent. I haven't been there since my kid was little. I live less than an hour away so I should get down there this summer.


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## BrentC (May 30, 2017)

HavToNo said:


> Fantastic shots Brent. I haven't been there since my kid was little. I live less than an hour away so I should get down there this summer.



I regret not taking my car through the safari.    We had visiting family with us and the young one wanted to see the baboons.   I wasn't going to take my car through that so we ended up going in their shuttles.    Taking photos through their fingerprint and tinted glass made them all unacceptable.    I probably have to turf all the ones taken on the safari which is a shame because I got a lot of great shot especially of the lions, white lions and giraffes among others.   They are all faded colour and no sharpness.   If I took my car I could roll the window down quickly to take my shots.   The baboons were nasty as ever and all over the shuttle and other cars.


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## birdbonkers84 (May 31, 2017)

BrentC said:


> Can someone tell me if its possible to do a good job of cloning out the water barrel in picture #7 and have it look seamless with the oof grass in the BG?  In #6 I did a quick and dirty clone out of the handlers leg on the left side.  Its very noticeable and I don't know how to blend the BG in better.   My PS skills are not very good, does someone know of a good tutorial specifically for that kind of editing?



It is possible, I did something like this on my Gannet Portrait, there was a massive white blurred out subject behind its head.

What I did in PS was using the Lasso tool, draw roughly round the area you want to remove, then got to Edit > Fill and make sure it's set to content-aware, this wont always completely remove everything, but it is a good start.  I then made a new layer and started cloning the surround area over the white blob I wanted to remove via the new layer.  Make sure the clone brush is feather too.  I then zoomed into the Gannet head and rubbed out all the traces of clone on the gannet.

Another way you could try is copy the grassy area to the right and flipping it, then placing it on the left over the barrel, then zoom in a rub out any areas covering your eagle.

There is no quick way to doing this, but with a little care the result will look cool.


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## birdbonkers84 (May 31, 2017)

I hope you don't mind, i took a screen grab of your eagle to quickly show you what I was talking about, only spent a few minutes on it using what I mentioned above, It's far from finished, but gives you an idea that it is possible in PS


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## BrentC (May 31, 2017)

Coull3d said:


> I hope you don't mind, i took a screen grab of your eagle to quickly show you what I was talking about, only spent a few minutes on it using what I mentioned above, It's far from finished, but gives you an idea that it is possible in PS




Thanks Mark.  That looks pretty good.  I did try myself with the fill and content-aware like I did in #6 but I was getting a real mess.   Nothing close to what you have done.  And never thought of copying the right side to the left.  Also I have not really worked with layers which I really need to learn to do and from what I have seen it is critical to be able to use layers in PS.  I think I need to spend a weekend going through video tutorials and try getting up to speed at least on the basics of PS.  If I have time tonight I'll try to replicate what you have done.


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## birdbonkers84 (May 31, 2017)

BrentC said:


> Coull3d said:
> 
> 
> > I hope you don't mind, i took a screen grab of your eagle to quickly show you what I was talking about, only spent a few minutes on it using what I mentioned above, It's far from finished, but gives you an idea that it is possible in PS
> ...



As another level of blending you could lasso tool all of the background copy and paste it onto a new layer then add a gaussian blur to it so that the whole background has an even OOF look.  Lots of trial and error involved, but with a little patience you'll find the look you are after.

I don't know of any specific tutorials for this kind of thing, but without sounding unhelpful I'm sure you'll find something on youtube


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## enezdez (Jun 11, 2017)

Nice Set, I Really Loved These, Good Luck With Your PS Project!!!


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## BrentC (Jun 12, 2017)

enezdez said:


> Nice Set, I Really Loved These, Good Luck With Your PS Project!!!



Thanks.


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