Pelican Take Off

[Todd Levine]

Shutter speed: 1/1600 sec
Aperture: 8
Exposure mode: Av
Exposure compensation: -1/3
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Multi-segment
ISO: 400
Lens: 600mm
Focal length: 840mm

[Stu Bowie]

Great timing Todd, and love the take off posture. Looking at the BG, this needs a slight CW rotation, and a round of NR.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Interesting pose, good wing position and sharpness. I agree about NR on the BG and CW rotation. I would also remove the bright spot in the upper left and tone down the highlights on the neck and wish for a bit more eye contact.

[Phil Ertel]

Hi Todd, I agree that this is an interesting pose. The water splash and droplets are nice. Good comments above. In addition, I would suggest trying to bring out a bit more detail in the darker areas of the bird. I gave it at try in photoshop using the shadow/highlight adjustment and there is some details that can be recovered. Might be worth a look. Thanks for sharing.

[Mark Theriot]

I agree with the comments on BG and spot in the upper left - but I love the pose and eye focus. He's not interested in you - he's got something else catching his attention - and he's interested!!

It's not the best for technical but it's demonstrates more behavioral interaction, in my opinion!

Mark

[Arthur Morris]

Good timing but a second too late as the bird's head is turned away from you. Yes to NR on the BKGR as well as some BKGR clean-up.

Where?

[Christopher Marek]

The head angle seems to still be ok, its the eye that has already wandered off into the intended direction of the birds flight. I wonder if this is an example of one that could be improved by cloning in an eye that is staring out towards the viewer. I expect to hear some horrible feed back on that suggestion. :eek:

[Arthur Morris]

Agree that the eyeball position is not helping but I am betting that the bill tip is farther away from us then the eyeball and that equals a bad head angle.... Square to the back of the camera would be much better (though I do agree that it is a close call).

[Todd Levine]

Ft. Desoto beach on the lagoon(bayside).