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image bald.eagle.rnclark-c11-2019-IMG_2272-rth.b-1400s.jpg is Copyrighted by Roger N. Clark, www.clarkvision.com

Bald Eagle Evasive Flight Maneuver #2272

Bald Eagle makes an evasive maneuver to avoid attack from another eagle in the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve, November, 2019. The eagle was moving at about 13 meters/second (30 miles/hour) at a range of about 38 meters, and shows the eagle turning to avoid a lunging eagle, making approximately a 90 degree turn thus decelerating after this frame to zero (relative to the camera) in about 0.4 second. Such velocities and acceleration at such a close range are difficult for a camera autofocus system to track.

Technical. This image was obtained with a stock Canon EOS 90D Camera and Canon 300 mm f/2.8 L IS II lens plus a Canon 1.4x teleconverter giving 420 mm at f/5.0, with an exposure of 1/1250 at ISO 800. Manual exposure. Full image, no crop.

Wild and free. No calls or bait were used to acquire this image.

This image was obtained with My Very Portable Astrophotography, Landscape and Wildlife Photography Setup with the lens on a gimbal head.

Using range information from the camera exif data, the eagles in full flight were flying at up to about 60 miles per hour, making flight photography difficult in the low light conditions typical for the time I was there. This required the camera plus lens autofocus system to lock on a bird quickly as it was flying in, and then continue to accurately track the focus with the rapidly moving bird. The Canon 90D with the 300 mm f/2.8 lens handled the job extremely well, with some of the best performance I have experienced in a DSLR camera. Note that DSLRs have a fast object tracking advantage as the autofocus design maintains phase information when the subject us in focus. On-sensor autofocus phase detect systems lose phase when the subject is in focus.

To learn how to obtain stunning images like this, please visit my Extensive Articles on Photography .


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Last updated March 10, 2024