Bald Eagle Photographer Eric Rossicci

Possibly North America’s most photographed bird, the Bald Eagle is the United States of America’s national emblem. Here are a couple of wildlife  photographer Eric Rossicci’s trademark photos of this majestic bird in full flight. Eric does most of his eagle and owl photography at Boundary Bay. During the month of February hundreds of these beautiful birds gather in Delta, British Columbia. He uses the Canon 1 D X Mark 11 EOS DSLR camera body (20.2 MG) with the Canon 500 lens with the 1.4 teleconverter (to take it up to 700 mm). The camera focuses instantly and fires an incredible 14 frames per second at a shutter speed of 1/8,000 second. That’s a ridiculous number of frames per second with very quick focusing and unparalleled tracking capabilities.To date Eric has over 21,000 Bald Eagle images on file.

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Eric’s full frame 20.2  megapixel capture of a majestic maturing adult Bald Eagle before cropping.

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A 50 % crop of the majestic maturing adult Bald Eagle above from a 20.2 megapixel file could easily provide enough data for a 4′ x 5′ or 4′ x 6′ same size print as the bird. This razor-sharp photo shows the curl on the forward wingtip from the forceful downward flap of the wings.

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Another of Eric’s  full frame captures before cropping.

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The above photo with 50 % cropping.

Eric has a few tips: First know your subjects, in this case the behavior of the Bald Eagle. By studying their body language, he can anticipate their reactions. Then all he has to do is fire off his camera, mounted on a tripod, remotely as soon as there is some action. When an eagle coils down slightly and starts opening its wings, it’s time to push the trigger. Eric spends an average of 3 to 4 hours daily honing his skills and shoots rain or shine. He has another secret: in order to keep his reflexes sharp, he practices with a readily available program on the Internet called ‘Test your reflexes’.

https://www.justpark.com/creative/reaction-time-test/

This type of photography is simple: practice, practice, practice!

Below iOS Eric’s link to Flickr account.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/101237979@N03/

Below is a link to some of Eric’s books:

http://www.blurb.ca/search/site_search?search=Eric+rossicci&filter=bookstore

2020-03-31T10:04:25-07:00

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