2017 Winter Wildlife Tour of Japan | Steller’s Sea Eagles Catching Fish

Mar 29 | Evan | No Comments |

Even with subfreezing temperatures and early morning starts on a boat, our small group of photographers touring Japan was having a great time in Rausu. The Steller’s Sea Eagles were not disappointing at all and whether hanging out or flying through the sky, the eagles provided ample photographic opportunities for our guided tour of Japan’s Winter Wildlife.

Of course one of the more dynamic parts of photographing the eagles was when the Steller’s Sea Eagles would swoop down from the sky and capture it’s prey! Capturing the moment while having the eagles not going away from me (got plenty of photos of eagle butts) was somewhat challenging but we had plenty of time and opportunities to create these photos of the eagles in Rausu.

In collaboration with Magic Is Photo Safaris, I escorted a small group of wildlife photographers for a Winter Wildlife Tour of Japan in search of Japanese Snow Monkeys, Red Crowned Crane, Swan, Steller’s Sea Eagles and whatever else we could find! To see more photos from our photo safari in Japan, view the 2017 Winter Wildlife Tour of Japan Trip Report.

2017 Winter Wildlife Tour of Japan | Steller’s Sea Eagles Flying

Mar 26 | Evan | No Comments |

Spending a few days in Rausu to photograph the Steller’s Sea Eagles was an amazing experience! Our Winter tour of Japan was coming to an end but our small group of photographers was determined to make the most of our time with these amazing birds. Everyone came back with many photographs of the eagles and for me, it was probably too many!

As most of my work is portraiture, sports and sometimes street or landscape photography in Japan, it was really difficult for me to edit down my Steller’s Sea Eagles photos from our trip to Hokkaido. Well, at first it was easy to sort out the photos I wanted to reject but getting from the first edit of eagles to the final edit was difficult! Take the two shots above for example. I love both the photos of that Steller’s Sea Eagle, but can’t easily say which one is better like I can with portraits, sports or landscapes. If there are any bird photographers that feel like sharing, I’d love some feedback!

2017 Winter Wildlife Tour of Japan | Short Video With Olympus OMD EM1 Mark II

Mar 23 | Evan | No Comments |

I’ve been a Nikon guy since my first photography class in 1998. First was film but quickly switched over to digital and never looked back but now it’s time to look forward. Mirrorless cameras have been around for a while but the technology is now reaching a point that I believe is similar to when digital was starting to seriously challenge film. In December Olympus released their flagship mirrorless micro 4/3 camera, the OM-D E1 Mark II and I was eager to get my hands on one. The main attractions to me were the smaller size (less weight makes a huge different for my physical condition while traveling), amazing image stabilization (I can hand hold what is essentially a 840mm lens and get great results with photo or video), and other features like live composition and pro capture. I might do a review OM-D E1 Mark II after my next tour of Japan in cherry blossom season but the short answer is that so far so good! Partly because of the image stabilization I wanted to do a little test video. It’s been a while since I’ve done any kind of video really, but I was quite happy with the results in the limited testing I did with it. Of course I probably only had about 5 minutes of raw footage to make this 2 minute clip out of, which really isn’t anywhere close to having enough for amazing footage, but as a short test, I’m pleased! Though it could have been user error, I do wish that autofocus during video was a little snappier!

2017 Winter Wildlife Tour of Japan | Steller’s Sea Eagles Watching Steller’s Sea Eagles

Mar 20 | Evan | No Comments |

The last stop for our Winter Wildlife Tour of Japan was the northeast of Japan’s most northern island, Hokkaido. Just outside of Shiretoko National Park is the small port town of Rausu where many Steller’s Sea Eagles can be found. Similar to the red-crowned cranes of Kushiro, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from these large birds. Also, we had to use a boat to take photos of the eagles. I don’t get sea sick though riding a boat in sub freezing weather, before sunrise, usually isn’t something I look forward to doing, but taking photos of the Steller’s Sea Eagles was really a rare opportunity!

There are a few different boats that will take you out into the Sea of Okhotsk looking for the drift ice and eagles though instead of crowding into a boat with many photographers, the decision was made to charter a boat for only our group to use. After seeing how crowded some of the other boats were, we knew we made the right decision to make the most of photographing the Steller’s Sea Eagles.

As I’m not normally a wildlife photographer, this tour of Japan was certainly a learning and exploring experience for me. With the snow monkeys in Nagano, I was surprised how like them humans are, with the red-crowned cranes in Kurshiro, I wasn’t expecting them to be so playful and graceful, with the swans in Kussharo, it was nice to see such pleasant swans and with these eagles in Rausu, it was a lot of fun to see the eagles interact with each other.

For whatever reason, I envisioned the Steller’s Sea Eagles acting much more aggressive with each other but almost seemed like they were really okay to take turns getting the food getting thrown out to them, perhaps because there was enough to go around! I’m not sure why I found it so interesting but I really enjoyed watching the eagles watching other eagles. Not sure if it was just because there were so many eagles and they had to look somewhere, but it always seemed each eagle was watching every other eagle it could see. Also not sure why I found it so enjoyable to watch the eagles watching eagles, but it was!