I thought I was dinner...

[BCrose]

Eagle was coming directly at me, it hit the water about 25 feet in front of the kayak...thought he was looking at me for dinner

[Milhouse]

Wow!!!! What an absolutely stunning set of images - the last one especially
Cheers
Jennifer

[FlyingSquirrel]

Spectacular photos as usual. On my new kindle fire HD tablet they look like the eagle is about to pop off the screen. Awesome!

[Trina]

WOW!!! what and amazing and beautiful series of photos!

[gregj1763]

Sensational series of images Monte. I love the 8th one when it grabs the fish, almost looks like an evil smile on it's face.
Well done

[Donald]

These are, as others have said, outstanding images. Plain and simple - outstanding. Eminently publishable. I'm sure one or other of the specialist bird magazines would snap them up. Equally, they are of wall-hanging quality.

Well done.

[John 2]

All of the superlatives have been used already. This is one of the best series I think that I have ever seen - right in every way. Truly National Geographic standard.

[Digital]

These are an extremely fantastic series of photos. Great job.

Bruce

[Mike Buckley]

I don't usually enjoy viewing photos of birds but this entire series is an exception. Not only is each and every image in the series exceptional, but it's also educational for someone like me who doesn't realize how the bird changes its wings and feet as it approaches the water.

[pasusan]

Monte, I am struck by these images as everyone else is and Mike expressed my thinking exactly. Very, very special!

Could you explain a bit about how you accomplished this? Did you set your camera in a continuous shooting mode and then choose the shots that you thought were the best? Did you use automatic or manual settings? Also, I wasn't able to see any EXIF data, which I like to look at to learn about image making...

Thanks for posting these.

[Loose Canon]

Jeez 'O Pete Monte! Outstanding!

What an opportunity. And you were ready to open the door when opportunity knocked!

Well done!

[Steve S]

Beautiful set of images, momte. Now that you know the secret, you can do it all the time. Sit in the yak and throw chum out to attract the fish ,and the eagles will fly in for a photo shoot.

[Andrew1]

Wow, the best eagle series I've seen. I would have had a bit of buck fever with that going on Monte. Very well done.

[Stinky]

Unbelievable!! Excellent images. Talk about being in the right place at the right time. Great job once again.

[terrib]

Geez, Monte, I can feel the adrenaline pumping just thinking about being there with the camera! Well done! They are all fantastic. I really love #7 because of the intense look on his face just before the strike and #10 because the background doesn't get in the way but gives a sense of where you are. The colors are fantastic.

[Dave Humphries]

+1

(what more can I add?)

[Rita]

Pics of eagles just don't come better than these. Absolutely awesome!!!

[davidedric]

In my home dialect

"Them's reet gradely pictures, lad"

and that's the top compliment I can offer.

Dave

[Bobobird]

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hope one of the mods would pick one and pin it to the top slideshow.

[BCrose]

Thanks everyone.
The right place the right time is all I can say about the experience.

The D4 and 200-400mm F/4 did the rest.

Susan: Very simple settings really. I use the Nikon D4 at 10 frames per second. This helps a great deal. I think I had 40 or 50 images to choose from and all were keepers, very pleased with that! Considering this probably all happened in 5 or 6 seconds the D4 really helps in that regard. I have the camera set on AF-C, Back button focus method and a single focus point. Who needs the other 52 anyway

Camera set to aperture priority and f/7.1 for this set. I had the lens at 340mm. I use auto-iso (blush) and set a minimum shutter speed to 1/1600. The only thing that changes in the series is the ISO and that ranged from 640 to 1400 in the last images with the green background. This is my bird set up that I pretty much stick with. I choose the aperture I want and let the camera do the rest.

These were taken from a small kayak. I creep around the small lakes in the area and wait for opportunities like this. Take thousands of pictures a month and probably have 100 keepers. Most of all I have fun and can share my images with you fine folks who appreciate them

Any other questions just ask, always happy to share info