On a recent trip to the Bay of Fires, my guests and I were extremely fortunate to witness this majestic White Bellied Sea Eagle fishing off the coast.

There was in fact a pair of eagles, fishing together and returning to their nest which – fortunately for us – was in the bush not far from where we were viewing.

During one particular fly-by, there was a very loud commotion, as a Pacific Gull too had noticed what was going on. And rather than go to all the hard work of catching his own fish, he thought he’d harass the much larger sea eagles and try and pinch a meal. Apparently he thought that was the easier option…

Photographing the White bellied sea eagle with the Sony A7RV

A year ago I switched camera systems to the Sony A7RV, and after capturing images like this, I am so glad I did. The A7RV has a subject recognition auto focus setting, which includes birds, animals, people, insects and various modes of transport.

With this set to birds, and continuous auto focus with subject tracking on, it was mind-blowing to watch the little green autofocus points dance and move in the viewfinder as I tracked and shot the action. Only 1 or 2 of the shots were not perfectly focused. And on top of everything else, the 61 megapixel sensor means even with significant cropping you’ve still got a respectable image for print.

The shutter speed I selected was 1/2000 seconds, and ISO was on auto. Due to the White bellied sea eagle’s white belly, the sunlight can easily result in overexposure, so I was careful to also dial in some underexposure on the exposure compensation.

Wildlife photography and photo workshops

While I don’t tend to talk up wildlife as a major aspect of my Tasmanian photography workshops, we are often in locations where wonderful wildlife experiences are common.

Many workshops I run include cruises, such as at Tasman Island, Bruny Island and the Tarkine. At Cradle Mountain we regularly see wombats and wallabies in the wild as well as Tasmanian Devils and Quolls at Devils@Cradle.

My spring 2026 and autumn 2027 dates are filling up fast, so visit my tours and workshops page for more details on ways to shoot Tasmania’s wildlife!