Bathing Pelican

[Phil Ertel]

This image was captured at 8:25AM on April 05, 2009 while on an excursion in the Alafia Banks in Florida with James Shadle on the Hoopie Deux. If you are ever in Florida, I highly recommend spending time with James. James knows where to go to provide you with numerous photography opportunities. He is very knowledgeable of the wildlife and is quick to share his observations to help you have the opportunity to produce the best images. He was also eager to offer advice and instructions to help improve our photography skills. The time I spent with James not only met my expectations but exceeded them.

While photographing Rosetta Spoonbills and Brown Pelicans, this bird came down out of the trees and landed in front of us and started bathing. I like the head on pose with water drops every where.

I converted the RAW file in ACR and imported then into CS3 (full frame). Once in CS3 I ran shadow/Highlights, adjusted slightly with levels, and ran noise reduction using the Topaz Denoiser plugin. I also slightly darkened highlights with a multiply mask layer. I resized/sharpened and posted.

Thanks for reviewing and special thanks for any comments/critiques.

Regards,

Phil

Image Specifications:
Camera: Canon 50D
Settings:
Manual Mode
f-Stop: 6.3
Shutter speed: 1/1000
ISO: 400

Lens: 500mm IS USM f4.0 plus 1.4x
Tripod: Gitzo GT3540LS with Mongoose 3.5; 4th generation
Flash: not used

[Scott Frye]

Great action and I like that I can see both eyes in this head on shot. Maybe try a little CCW rotation to straighten.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Ditto the comments about James...a treat for sure aboard the Hooptie Deux :-)

Quite the intense action here, so much water splashing around! I can just hear the flapping going on. To my eyes the image looks a little bit overexposed as everything seems so bright. The strong light didn't help. A levels adjustment of the middle tones may hekp with this. I agree with a CCW rotation. I like the in-your-face comp!!

[Maxis Gamez]

This is excellent. Love the behavior and details. I have to agree about the CCW rotation.

Keep them coming!

[Juan Aragonés]

Wow, that is a fantastic splash! I love this kind of images and I like a lot the intense eye contact in both eyes. Superb. I have to agree with Daniel about toning down the image but just a litle bit and I would try to warm the color a bit too.