pelican 2

[stuart wanuck]

nikon d 300 iso 400 300 mm f 6.1

[DanWalters]

Beautiful shot! Love the colors and the detail in the pelican

[Jasper Doest]

Beautiful colors and lovely pose...but the tilted horizon doesn't work for me.

[Joe Senzatimore]

Very nice but that horizon needs a fix.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Agree about the horizon.
Except that, I believe this image has lots of potential, good pose, sharpness and compo.
Here's a quick repost that can give you a better idea of how to improve this one, not a big deal since the BG has only two colors to work with.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Sharpness, detail, and exposure, quite good. The tilted horizon is basically a no-no unless there is a good and obvious reason to do it. Can't see one here, so I agree with straightening it out. The biggest problem, and one that can't be fixed, is the wing position and the out of focus wing tips. Blurred wings, whether caused by movement of flight or being out of a focused depth of field can look very similar, especially when the subject is flying across the view. Either can look like the bird is in motion, and will work. However in this case it is obviously depth of field that caused only the wing tips to be blurred (since we would expect much more of the wing to be show a motion blur), and instead of an indication of motion it appears to be a mistake. Thus, as often is the case, wing position can make or break a Bird in Flight image.
In the future I would concentrate on two things. One is be more aware of the horizon and make sure to keep it level (takes practice) and as far as wing position goes shoot as many frames per second as your camera allows during the moment of opportunity. You're bound to get at least a few more optimal wing position shots, with full up or down most advantageous IMO. hope I've been helpful ~Bill

[Jon Thornton]

I agree with William's observations/suggestions. Your D300 will do 8 fps with the battery grip. You'll need to drop from 14 to 12 bit though. This shouldn't be a big drama if you nail your exposure.

[Jason Franke]

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However in this case it is obviously depth of field that caused only the wing tips to be blurred (since we would expect much more of the wing to be show a motion blur), and instead of an indication of motion it appears to be a mistake.

I don’t think the blur is primarily or significantly related to DoF.

From an image analysis point of view, the blur is primarily distributed along the path of the wingtip motion; linearly along an arc formed by the wingtips pivoting around the outer most joint and not radially around the OOF element. The other edge of the blurred primaries is a much harder edge than the blur edges leading towards it (parallel to the feather’s shaft). Also, the transition form perfectly sharp to OOF appears far too rapid to my eye to be a characteristic of DoF. We are after all talking about a transition that over less than 1’ of distance towards us goes from being in reasonably sharp focus to OOF enough that it’s very clearly visible in a web sized image. That’s not how I’ve ever seen DoF related blur behave, at least not at the distances involved here.

From a flight mechanics perspective, the only time the primaries would be both angled towards the rear of the bird and lower than the outer joint is near the end of the recovery stroke. At this point, the lower portion of the wing is at or close to the extremity of it’s range of motion and has slowed considerably in preparation for the upcoming power stroke. The wing tips are now moving much faster than the rest of the wing as they travel from their recovery configuration as shown to extend upwards for the start of the power stroke. So the tips being motion burred is consistent with the motion you should expect at this point in the wing beat.

One thing I've found very deceptive is how fast birds can move some parts of their bodies in the course of performing some relatively mundane action. I have images of a Snowy Egret shaking its head and neck, shot at shutter speeds in excess of 1/1250^th that still show significant motion blur in the areas that were in motion.

For what it’s worth, a quick search on Youtube turned up this video with some slowed down footage of a pelican’s flight (it’s not mine and I have no connection to the people that produced it). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFwqwMBTfZg&feature=related
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[WIlliam Maroldo]

V Jason. I stand corrected, which begs the question whether caused by insufficient shutter speed as appears to be the case, or depth of field, does the blurred wing tips have a negative impact on the photograph? Unless the point of the photograph was to demonstrate the rapid movement of bird wingtips in relation to overall wing movement, I'd be hard pressed to consider it an asset.
Generally I have the opinion that wing blur can be an asset, and indeed shows dynamic motion. However it must be quite evident, and visually obvious, or it looks like a focusing error. In other words slightly blurred wings won't cut it. Of course this may merely be a subjective opinion; sometimes its hard to separate subjective from objective. regards~Bill

[Jason Franke]

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V Jason. I stand corrected, which begs the question whether caused by insufficient shutter speed as appears to be the case, or depth of field, does the blurred wing tips have a negative impact on the photograph? Unless the point of the photograph was to demonstrate the rapid movement of bird wingtips in relation to overall wing movement, I'd be hard pressed to consider it an asset.

I can get behind that. I’m tending towards the blur not helping here.

My intent, though, was to point out that this type of wingtip blur seems to be fairly easy to catch in pelicans and often isn't entirely or mostly DOF related when the wing is in this position. This seems like a special case to be cognizant of when shooting pelicans.


Of course this may merely be a subjective opinion; sometimes its hard to separate subjective from objective. regards~BillI think that if you can back your opinion up that’s all that's really necessary. If that sparks an interesting discussion then maybe we all can learn something and are better off.