Lumberjack?

[Arthur Morris]

While photographing with Lou Newman and Ron Mayberry in Sarasota Bay on Ron's boat, we had lots of Brown Pelicans bringing rather large items to their nests. This bird (with a Sabal palm ??? branch) was photographed with the (much maligned) Canon 100-400 IS L Zoon lens at 310mm (handheld) with the EOS-50D. ISO 640. Evauative metering +2 stops: 1/1000 sec. at f/5.6 set manually.

Quick Masked the mangrove and applied a 40 pixel Gaussian blur.

Thanks for the ride, Ron!

Don't be shy; all comments welcome. I am here to learn too.

[Randy Stout]

Artie:

That is a heck of a branch. I am surprised he can fly with it! Must have been a still day.

I like the head angle, sharpness and composition. If possible, just a bit more detail under the wing and on the torso. The bird looks just a bit washed out to me, perhaps a couple points more of saturation.

The branch is what makes it!


Randy

[Daniel Cadieux]

Yes, the much maligned 100-400...hmm, I see you are getting great results with that lens too. Why am I not surprised!? :-)

I'm wishing the underside of the pelican would be better lit. Otherwise pretty neat! That is some big piece of vegetation it is bringing to the nest, very cool. The OOF mangroves are an important element to the comp...I'm sure many would have been tempted to eliminate them - glad you didn't!

[Arthur Morris]

Artie: That is a heck of a branch. I am surprised he can fly with it! Must have been a still day. I like the head angle, sharpness and composition. If possible, just a bit more detail under the wing and on the torso. The bird looks just a bit washed out to me, perhaps a couple points more of saturation.
The branch is what makes it! Randy

It was actually quite breezy. I did the best that I could with the color; it was a white sky/cloudy dark day.

[Mike Tracy]

Looks like some type of ornamental bamboo but I don't mind standing corrected.

I like the inclusion of the mangroves. Sometimes there is more to a good bird / wildlife image then just critiquing the subject itself

[Patty Sullivan]

I was just carrying some lumber yesterday (for a support for a sunblock cloth for my garden,) and that is exactly how I carried it. Love those Pelicans. Great shot. Can't wait to get this garden work done and get back out there!