Well I never..

Bald Eagle, originally uploaded by andyskelton-a Blog a day http://andrewskelton.net.

I thought I’d taken all the shots of the Bald Eagles at the Hawk Conservancy that I could possibly take, I was wrong by a long way.

I’m particularly pleased with today’s image, of Danesbury, not only is it a very sharp and pleasing image, but it was as a result of a bit more experimentation. With the 600mm lens firmly fixed on the new and improved manfrotto tripod head (thanks Dad!) I had both a 1.5x and 1.4x teleconvertor attached, converting the 600mm lens to a whopping 1260mm lens… and this was even before factoring in the camera’s crop factor of 1.3. This is itself is pretty impressive but of course it doesn’t improve the minimum focal length of the lens, this being 5.5m (as I’ve mentioned time and time again). I fitted a couple of macro extension tubes to this configuration to allow me to combat this and so get closer to the subject.

I don’t think I can fault the sharpness of this configuration, which is surprising really as the extra pieces of glass are not necessarily built to the same high standard as the 600mm lens. I’m also pleased with the colour and contrast of the final image; it would seem the cooling effect of the 1.5 extender is counteracted by the warming effect of the 1.4 converter thereby giving a pretty accurate colour cast.

Bet you glad you asked now? What, you didn’t ask, and you let me waffle on for so long about the technicalities? Sorry about that!

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