Sunrise Pelican

[Stu Bowie]

This was taken in Cape Town, as the sun was coming up. I liked the angle of flight, and the warm colours. For their size, these guys are pretty graceful flyers.

Canon 50D
100-400 L IS USM @ 400mm
1/500
F/8
ISO 640

Exp Comp +0.33
Hand Held.

[Morkel Erasmus]

sweet light here Stu! I would have liked BG to be a bit more OOF but what does work well for me is the different colours in the shot. somehow it makes the bird stand out nicely (and the bird is sharp!)

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Stuart,
I like this image. The higher depth of field gives a nice environmental image. Nice light. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Randy Stout]

Stuart:

Sharp, well exposed and composed.
I agree with Morkel, for me, a shallower depth of field would have isolated the bird a bit more, still allowing sense of place, but showing off the bird more.

Cheers

Randy

[Mark Dumbleton]

Agree more OOF BG would be good, but this has a sort of "bird landscape" feel to it, and I like it.
Super light.

[Stu Bowie]

Thanks for all the constructive comments and suggestions. Here is my repost with a OOF BG. Hope this works.

[Randy Stout]

Stuart:

Nice improvement. Still a strong sense of his environment, but the BG is less distracting, the reduced highlight areas in the green helps a lot.

Cheers

Randy

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the light, setting and eye contact and wish the near wing were higher up.

[Ramon M. Casares]

To be honest, I prefer the OP, less PS there, although I agree that a more OOF BG would've been better, it is preety much impossible to get and OOF BG when the distence between you and the subject is bigger or equal than the distance between the subject and the BG, specially with such a large subject, in this case, I think that not even f5.6 would've blurred the BG enough to isolate the pelican, and as I am not really into PS blurred BGs I choose the OP, the bird stands out good and the pose and comp, as well as light and colors are great. Congratulations!

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Very nice pelican Stuart.
Agree about the choice of f number to isolate the bird. jc

[Harshad Barve]

Sharp, well exposed and composed
My vote for Original
Harshad

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Hi Stuart. I really like the colors. The perfectly horizontal water/beach/vegetation is excellent and such horizontal configuration has a calming influence on the viewer. I could also make an argument that the background might have been better in sharper focus, or at a minimum as it is. Sure, you could blur the background, but that is not the only solution. Indeed there are situations that there is nothing you can do about a busy background but don't think thats what you have here. What is distracting is confusion of a background, or elements that are not visually tied together. Here a strong color harmony ties the background together (thanks to the sunrise). A chaotic background detracts, an orderly and well composed one reinforces the main element (focal point of the image, the pelican in this case). In other words, in environmental images, all elements of the environment need not be blurred, but certain compositional rules, such as balance and order, need to be adhered to.
The pelican: the position in the frame is alright, however the wing position is not IMO. Generally having both wings appearing roughly the same size seems to work best. There is a symmetry involved. The left wing is fine, but the foreshortening of the right causes a visual imbalance.
Just my take~Bil

[Steve Canuel]

Hi Stuart,
I prefer the original as well. I think its sufficiently blurred and I really like the layered colors. Bird looks sharp. Would prefer a higher up right wing but this one sgguests a banking turn so I'm okay with it as presented.

[Dave Barnes]

I also prefer the original Stu.
The whites look a bit bright I think?

[Stu Bowie]

Thank you all so much for the varied comments with regard to the BG, and on the image itself.