White Pelicans at Dawn

First Post.
Been playing in the small ponds, so figured it was time to jump into the big ocean and post a photo here for critique, opinions and most of all suggestions.
This was taken at dawns first light. Canon 40D, 100-400L ISO 320 1/250th shutter and spot metered.
Had to make a setting decision and went with keeping the ISO as low as possible and with IS turned on went to the slowest shutter speed I was comfortable using. I was in a setting position with elbows resting on my knees for support.
This was the end of a very large and tightly packed group of Pelicans.
I really wanted to capture this light as the sun just peaked up over the distant cypress trees, but should I have just bumped the ISO up higher and gotten a faster shutter and dealt with the potential noise?

Thanks in Advance for your input, insight and suggestions.

Steve

Hi Steve:

It's great to see you posting on BPN. I really like the mood of this picture. I imagine the experts will give you their opinions on the settings. Keep them coming!

Thanks Marina, Thanks for being my first comment.
Should have been posting here sooner,but I am sure I will make up for lost time.

Welcome to BPN Steve...glad you took the plunge!

You certainly did capture the lighting and mood exceptionally well here. I love that the front row of Pelicans are all looking in the same direction, and then the back rows a mixed-bag of preening and stretching.

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Had to make a setting decision and went with keeping the ISO as low as possible and with IS turned on went to the slowest shutter speed I was comfortable using. I was in a setting position with elbows resting on my knees for support

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Although the sharpness looks great here I would not hesitate one bit in upping the ISO with your 40D, just to put chances on your side more consistently. I have the same camera/lens combo as you do and I don't worry at all about noise issues at all if I have to raise it. P.S. good "stabilizing" technique.

Looks like the image may need a tiny bit of CW rotation, and I would look into removing the black reflections in lower right corner just to give the complete lower edge a cleaner finish. Quite well done, looking forward to more.

P.S. I'd love to see this larger (you are allowed up to 1024 pixels long, and up to 200kb)

Thanks Daniel. I try hard to keep it below 400 ISO if at all possible (call me old school I guess). I have gone to 3200 on some images where there was no other logical choice but seem to prefer to keep it under 400 just in case I need to adjust the contrast and avoid those pesky little dots of noise that show up.
Thanks for the good word on the technique, I grew up shooting guns and lots of the techniques are very much the same for shooting photos.
Appreciate the tip on both the reflection on the lower right and being able to post larger images. I used a quick conversion software to downsize the originals and I believe I can get a 1024 long setting on it.

(CW rotation?)

Big welcome to BPN, Steve, looking forward to more form you. Great advise from Daniel, usually spot on, and nice image to boot. I'd take advantage of size allowance, easier to comment and to display when it is bigger.

Keep them coming!

Thanks Fabs, I will take advantage of every pixel allowed in the future. I agree that the larger the image the better the view/critique.

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(CW rotation?)

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Sorry Steve, I'm used to speaking in abbreviations for often used terms :-) CW rotation = clockwise rotation. Looks like the image is slightly tilted down from right to left (albeit not by much though) and a "CW rotation" will fix that.

GOT IT,, I am very used to abbreviations as well (being in the IT world) but every once in a while I run across one that puzzles me a bit.
I have a very bad habit of a slight tilt when I shoot, and normally its the first thing I try and fix in workflow. I dont always get it just right.
Thanks.