When the subject you are shooting will be moving toward you at a fast clip, such as this released golden eagle, focus two or three feet in front of it. At the same time, use a fairly small lens aperture to gain depth of field. This will put the odds in your favor that it will be sharp at the moment you take the picture. In the case of this eagle hunter in Mongolia, my photo tour group and I knew the direction the bird would fly once released, so we could anticipate where we should focus. The sun was bright at around 4:30pm, and that enabled us to use a minimal ISO while enjoying depth of field as well as a fast shutter to freeze the movement of the wings.
My settings were 1/2000th of a second at f/8 and 320 ISO. I took this picture with a 300mm f/2.8 Canon lens.
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