Brown Pelican at Sunset

[Bill Dix]

Taken at Bunche Beach just before sunset in February. I waded out into deeper water of San Carlos Bay to get a good sun angle on the Pelican that was hanging out with some gulls and terns on a submerged sandbar. Cloned out several oof birds. I assume this is a juvenile (1st year) Brown Pelican -- see John Mack's post of yesterday for comparison.

D500, 500f4 + 1.4 TC, ISO 800, 1/3200s @ f/7.1 manual. Gitzo and Mongoose.

[Alex Becker]

Hi Bill, great light and background. Composition is nice as are the details on the bird. The drop of water on the beak is a cool touch as are the hint of waves. Blacks may be a bit heavy in some places but you were there and before sunset that makes sense. TFS

[Jonathan Ashton]

I really like this image, beautiful colours and delightful light on the pelican.

[Daniel Cadieux]

You did well to position yourself for the light angle. Good job on the cloning too. I could see the image go about a third brighter. Well done overall!

[John Mack]

Very nice light really like the pose on the bird, nice background as well.

[Bill Dix]

Thank you all. I went back and experimented with various schemes for brightening the image: whole image vs just bird; whole tonal range or just mid and dark tones; etc. In all of them, the image seemed to lose the richness of the OP, and didn't look the way I remember it.