Some More Snow in the Forecast

Now that the snow from over two weeks ago is almost melted, we're in line for another extended storm system that will mix snow with rain. I headed over to Peebles Island around noon time today to see what's going on with the Bald Eagle nest.

The nest is being attended to but there's not much movement which I'm presuming means no hatches yet. Yesterday, I did see an adult on the nest and the other in flight around the area. Today, just one adult on the nest.

Yesterday, I came away with no useable shots of the nest. I'm increasingly disappointed with the used Sigma lens I traded a lot of good gear to obtain. One problem is that the older version (free) DxO Optics Pro software I was using to clean up the files isn't working on my computer since the most recent macOS update. The other problem is that, as some reviews noted, it's not as good with far away subjects as it is for closer in. The Eagle nest is not close. I may try and use it for some daytime field sports with a full frame body. There's something cool about a four pound hunk of metal and glass regardless.

Today, I tried some different techniques in an attempt to improve the image quality. Instead of using my 7D body and a monopod, I used my SL1 body and a tripod, manually focusing with zoomed in live view. Any differences were not noticeable. Here are some iPhone shots of the big lens/small body setup. You can see the nest in the second photo.

Here is a 100% cropped shot of the nest from today and a shot from yesterday showing that, not cropped and with a closer subject, the lens has some potential. My next experiment will be to take it out with my full frame body. Maybe up along the canal trail.