Skipping Pelican Pt. II

This is about the end of the sequence I captured of the 'Skipping Pelican", which I had posted a few days back. It was in fact chasing a rather sizable fish, possible an Australian Bass or a Carp. It was successful too. I added canvas just above the tip of the left wing, which while it was fully in the frame, was too close for me. I then added the BG with quick masks and used the heal tool to blend, then selected the area above the straight line of grass and applied a gaussian blur. I think I accidentally left a bit of blur on some of the wing bits. :(

30D, 300mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x, ISO400, -2/3 comp, f/6.3, 1/2500th, cropped vertical (full height) from horizontal. I kind of like the eye that it is visible through the wash. Any comment or critique most welcome. :)

Great angle, wing position and seeing the eye adds to it although I think it would have been even better with a bit more of the head above the water.

Yes, being able to see the eye is very important here. If the pelican's head was just a bit higher out of the water the yellow from the base of the bill that would have shown up would have been great. Looks like it may need a degree or two of CCW rotation. Excellent action you've captured, good call in adding canvas above. I love the extreme low angle perspective!

Great action here! Lovely wing position, good BG, it is GREAT that one can see the bird's eye.
I would've sharpened the whole image more and not just the water and eye, and I would also try a more tidy blur on the BG as the bird's right wing has an Halo in the elbow tyhat coudl be because of the blur, please do correct me if I am wrong.
Congratulaitons on a wonderfull shot Akos!

Hi guys, thanks for the supportive comments. Ramón, you are most likely correct about the halo mate. I think it is a remnant of the erasing (lack of) from the blurring of the bg.

Daniel, thanks for the tilt tip. I thought I did enough already. COuld not agree with myself on the amount of rotation to apply. I will play with the suggested settings.

Thanks again. :)

Great action captured and extreme low angle of shot !! You managed to handle the exposure very well here, considering the very bright subject on a dark BG.
Personally, I would have loved to see the image in a horizontal frame (the water in the FG is a bit too much for me).