Big Bird, Long Runway

[Joseph Przybyla]

I captured this image of a Brown Pelican at Ft. DeSoto County Park in Pinellas County, Florida. These birds are big and heavy, to take off from the water the feet and legs are pushing and the wings are flapping powerfully to rise above the water. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Nikon D500
Nikon 500mm PF, camera and lens supported by a Oben carbon fiber monopod with a Wimberly MonoGimbal head
1/2000 F/5.6 Matrix Metering EV +1/3 ISO 640 Auto 1 WB, image captured at 500mm (750mm 35mm Equivalent)
Post processed in Lightroom Classic, Photoshop CC 2022 and Topaz Denoise AI
Cropped for composition and presentation

[Jonathan Ashton]

Absolutely super my only reservation is sharpening (and possibly clarity??) on the water, I think the water splashes are a little too prominent.

[Andreas Liedmann]

hi Joe ... superb action captured and the splashes behind the subject are killer .
framing works well .
not too excited about the output in terms of iq .... as it falls way behind the meadowlark !!!!! .... at least for me . I can see a lot of artifacts , whereas the lark image showed none !

tfs Andreas

[Joseph Przybyla]

hi Joe ... superb action captured and the splashes behind the subject are killer .
framing works well .
not too excited about the output in terms of iq .... as it falls way behind the meadowlark !!!!! .... at least for me . I can see a lot of artifacts , whereas the lark image showed none !

tfs Andreas

Hi Andreas, thank you for viewing and commenting. Once again I am not sure what artifacts you are seeing. Would you point to them so I can understand and find a way to fix them. Thanks again...