Taken at Bunche Beach just before sunset in February. I waded out into deeper water of San Carlos Bay to get a good sun angle on the Pelican that was hanging out with some gulls and terns on a submerged sandbar. Cloned out several oof birds. I assume this is a juvenile (1st year) Brown Pelican -- see John Mack's post of yesterday for comparison.
D500, 500f4 + 1.4 TC, ISO 800, 1/3200s @ f/7.1 manual. Gitzo and Mongoose.
Hi Bill, great light and background. Composition is nice as are the details on the bird. The drop of water on the beak is a cool touch as are the hint of waves. Blacks may be a bit heavy in some places but you were there and before sunset that makes sense. TFS
You did well to position yourself for the light angle. Good job on the cloning too. I could see the image go about a third brighter. Well done overall!
Thank you all. I went back and experimented with various schemes for brightening the image: whole image vs just bird; whole tonal range or just mid and dark tones; etc. In all of them, the image seemed to lose the richness of the OP, and didn't look the way I remember it.