Float plane landing

by | Jul 28, 2012 | Landscape

This image was taken in Homer in Alaska in July 2012. I had seen the float planes flying overhead in the days that I was there but I did not see them landing  or taking off – always in the air of flying away or into Homer itself. On this day, we were heading back from the Spit to our accommodation and I saw a float plane coming into land. I quickly parked the car and go out and raced back to a location on the bridge where the plane was coming straight towards me for landing. However I was too late and the plane was already on the water and taxing into the dock. As I headed back towards the car another plane flew overhead and banked on approach to landing – there must have been two groups of passengers out that way. I quickly got back into position and captured this image as the first plane was heading towards the dock and the second plane was just touching down to land.

The shot was taken handholding the camera and keeping the shutter speed relatively high in order to avoid shake as I was shooting with the 70-200mm lens at approximately 200mm.

Equipment used :

Camera: Canon 1D Mark IV
Lens: Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L II IS USM
Handheld
EXIF: ISO 400 f/5.6 1/1000 +0.33ev 175mm

Juvenile Eagle in Homer

by | Jul 27, 2012 | Wildlife

This image was taken when I was in Homer in July 2012. The weather was not great – as might be apparent in the image taken here – and the float plane that we were hoping to take out to Hallo Bay to see the bears could not fly this day. I asked around the town what there was to see or do but with a population of 5500 people odd – which drops off a lot in winter seemingly – your options are limited. It is either bears or fishing. The eagles are still around even though the Eagle Lady passed away in 2009. Seemingly they gather around the local dump in winter time as an easy place to gather food so we headed up there to see if we could find anything.

I spotted a few eagles further back in the tree line but there were too far away to get a shot. This juvenile was on a heap of dirt surrounded by ravens and he posed just long enough to get this image of him before flying off to the shelter of the tree line approximately 100m away.

I was using the best hide of all for this shot – the rental car. I had the window down and rested the lens on the door frame and composed the shot. I placed my fleece under the lens to help with vibrations etc.

Equipment used:

Camera: Canon 1D Mark IV
Lens: Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS + 1.4 EF II Teleconverter ( effectively 700mm)
Shot from the door of the car – using the car as a hide
EXIF: ISO 1600 f/5.6 1/1000 0ev 700mm