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Taken at Taronga Zoo when I was in Sydney the other day.
It's one of my first bird shots with the 80-400 and I quite like the result.



Cheers
John

John,

what a great shot. That is one magnificient photo of the Wedgetail Eagle.

Looks like you will be putting that 80-400 to good use,

Cheers,

André
(reminds himself to make it to Taronga zoo)

Great shot of one of my favourite birds, sadly since I've had my camera I"ve only seen caged ones.. (shows I haven't been bush nearly enough).

How cropped was this ?

Thanks André and Craig.

Craig, I cannot recommend enough the Bird Show at Taronga Zoo. We liked it so much we went back for the 2nd sitting. The action is fast and furious but I was able to get better shots at the 2nd sitting because I remembered the script from the first.

Exposed for the sky in manual mode (about f5.6, 1/1000 sec, ISO 200 from memory), continuous focus, shot at 5fps on d200 mostly at 400mm. Filled a card up real quick, then deleted heaps of half bird and out of focus shots between shows.

The original is landscape oriented. I think I've cropped off about 1/5 each top and bottom and 1/3 off each left and right to give this portrait oriented image. From memory, in photoshop, it is about 45% when fitted to screen.

Cheers
John

Love the shot, I can't imagine how big the bird is in real life?

I heard their wingspans are huge!

Thanks for the information John, does the Bird Show run all days ? We have tickets to the Zoo, just haven't had a chance to use them yet.

Alpha_7 wrote:Thanks for the information John, does the Bird Show run all days ? We have tickets to the Zoo, just haven't had a chance to use them yet.

Craig,

it runs every day, 12 and 3, have a look here:
http://www.zoo.nsw.gov.au/content/view.asp?id=1075

cheers,

André

Thanks for the link Andrei.

John, would I survive with the 18-200 or 80-200 ? Or should I get out the 70-300G ? When I go, I hope to take both bodies, to save a bit of lens swapping.

Craig, I used the 80-400 and 85/1.4 all day. So I'd say the 80-200 would be a prefernce to the 18-200. Uunless you plan on sticking the camera in the lions mouth, I don't think you'd need to go wide. I don't know about the 70-300 for the bird shots. Maybe the 80-200 and some serious cropping. With the 80-400 I got a fair bit of colour fringing (or whatever that thing is that you fix in camera raw) on the shots of the dark birds against the blue sky. I think the 70-300 would probably give you more fringing but the 80-200 might perform better with it's better optics. From memory the 70-300 goes soft when longer than 250mm, so probably best to stick with the 80-200. Or borrow a 80-400.

The bird show entry is free as part of zoo admission. I'd recommend you go to both sessions (12 and 3).

Cheers
John