photoartflightImmature Bald Eagle At Brigantine
While we were photographing Ducks & Geese in the water along the Wildlife Drive at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Brigantine Division, we noticed this large dark bird along the far shoreline that had just landed. I thought it might be an Immature Bald Eagle because of the large size and dark coloring. I shot quite a few series of this bird as it flew short distances along the far shoreline and it kept moving farther & farther down the shoreline, landing multiple times along the way. When I got a chance to work on my files I remembered this series and started to work on the Raw files. I was using a Canon 400mm DO f/4 lens with a Canon Series III 1.4X Teleconverter so for that distance away the bird was extremely small in the frame. First I opened the Canon R raw files as 54MP, instead of the standard 30MP. I did this to get a little more pixels to work with since the Eagle was so small in the file and bumping up the faux pixels when opening in Camera Raw sometimes still retains more detail. This helps to get an image somewhat usable with a little more pixels, be it they are faux pixels. These are extreme (Very Extreme) crops so the quality is not great, but it is fun to see it was an Immature Bald Eagle with what looked like a Duck in its talons. It made its way up the shoreline, stopping multiple times for a snack on the way. We were on the Wildlife Drive (so we were quite far away) and these are just a few images from the series as it was working its way down the far shoreline.
Eagle taking off after a wave of Canada Geese flew over the Eagle
Immature Bald Eagle with Atlantic City Skyline across the water
photoartflight 
We are blessed with the ability to see an abundance of Eagles hanging out on the Mighty Mississippi having been pushed down as the ice forms up north. Not sure how many you have in this area, but a successful capture of fish usually results in all out war between the other Eagles in the area – this one looks like it was able to enjoy its spoils in peace. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks! At this NWR there are not large amounts of Eagles so they usually do not attract others trying to steal their meal. But in the warmer months when there are lots of Ospreys here you can see Eagles trying to get a fish from the Ospreys. I was more surprised this Eagle looked like it had settled for a duck or other large bird.
Not a good day for the duck. 😉 Amazing how technology helps us see the unseeable!
Yes, I agree. It was fun to see the Eagle though! At this NWR you know they are around but do not really see them. But in the warm weather you can great images of Ospreys!
WOW, these shots came out great, Reed! I am curious about your mentioning opening your raw files as 54MP, instead of the standard 30MP. Can you explain a little on that? I process my images from raw and use Photoshop.
Hi Donna! Yes, I always shoot raw files because you can get so much more out of them instead of shooting jpegs and letting the camera manufacturer set your standards. You say you shoot raw files which is good. When You go to open your file in Camera Raw and you have the file in the preview window, at the very bottom of the screen Under the preview image you will see the text Adobe RGB .. text. It usually gives the size and the raw file size. On mine it would have said 30.1 MP. Click on that text and a new window opens up – at the top it says Workflow Options. This is the window where you can change the MP size. Go to the image sizing area. Most use it to downsize, but you can click off the option in the middle that says Don’t Enlarge. Then change ONE (You only need to change just one, not both of the H or W) of the size options to a larger number (either W: or H:) and hit tab. you will then see a larger MP number to the right of the sizes. Try different sizes to get the megapixel value you want. Also since you use Camera Raw you might want to try different values for different photo subjects. Using camera raw helps get so much more out of your image. Also Camera raw has a wide library of lens profiles to fix lens Aberrations and Profile corrections which helps also. My whole workflow works around Camera Raw. It also helps get the most out of your images before you open them in Photoshop, where you can then apply other techniques.
Let me know if you need any more info.
Thank you very, very much for explaining this, Reed! I just printed and will try this out! It may be a few days, I’ve come down with a nasty head/chest cold, so my brain is fuzzy for thinking straight for anything. 😉
Hi Reed! I attempted following your instructions on raw images. When I go to the “text Adobe RGB .. text” for the size and the raw file size, mine says 10.0 MP. I continued on but really didn’t make sense after that. Maybe I’m not feeling well enough yet to think straight, lol, but I’m curious on learning this if I can and had to try. Not sure if you can comment on this as yet, but I’ll try again in a few days. Thanks! Donna 🙂
Hi Donna! When you click on the line – Adobe RGB…..,a new window pops up. Under Image sizing in the middle of the window –
First click off the Box – Don’t Enlarge. Otherwise it will not enlarge or change.
Then enter a larger number in the width or height only and hit tab. If it did not enlarge try the other box, just in case. Try a little smaller increase amount first to get a feel for it.
You can then now try different larger sizes and see the MP value go up (listed to the right of the text “inches”. If you want you could also insert smaller numbers to open the Raw file smaller. I usually use the normal size and then downsize in Photoshop for this.
Hope this helps! If not let me know and I can post a series of screen grabs. Mostly I use this for some cropping or printing really really large digital outputs. I found this works better than some 3rd party uprezzing software. Mainly because you are working with the Raw Data.
Also you can go to Photoshop Preferences and tell Camera Raw to open jpegs in Camera Raw also, but jpegs already have the camera settings built in so to speak so it works better with Raw files.
Thanks so much, I’ll give it another try soon!