Bear River pelican

[Ben Egbert]

Here is another pelican from my Bear River NWR trip last spring.

No special processing here other than to run NR and use a blur on the upper background bank.

For web posting only, I probably could have gotten by without NR. On the other hand, I see no degradation from the light NR on the bird. It affects mostly the background and water.

50D, 500f4+1.4 at f6.3, ISO200 1/1250 sec, from a beanbag inside my vehicle.

[Christian Dionne]

Amazing colors and sharpness, great composition, beautiful bird with a great expression... well done!

It seems to me that the water is not quite horizontal, maybe it is a perspective trick due to the waves but it seems to slope to the left...

Beautifut shot!

[Ben Egbert]

Thanks, and you are correct, I was fixing the bird waterline and should have looked closer at the water itself. I have plenty of room to fix this. Thanks for the catch.

[Arthur Morris]

A stunning breeding plumage bird. The EXP is very good and the image is sharp. I wish that the bird had been closer to you so as to eliminate the far bank from the image. Most importantly the bird is much too far forward in the frame. There is more room behind the subject than in front of it; that is a big no-no here...

[Ben Egbert]

A stunning breeding plumage bird. The EXP is very good and the image is sharp. I wish that the bird had been closer to you so as to eliminate the far bank from the image. Most importantly the bird is much too far forward in the frame. There is more room behind the subject than in front of it; that is a big no-no here...

Thanks Arnie. Closer would have been nice. I can fix the crop however, lots of room. I will wait a bit in case others have suggestions and fix that and the angle at one time. I assume putting the eye in the upper right 1/3 point would be correct?

[Harshad Barve]

beautiful bird with nice expos and sharpness , Arthur covered very well here and agreed
TFS

[Ben Egbert]

Here is a new crop with the iamge rotated to match the water. The rule of thirds did not work here. If I put the eye at the left 1/3 looks really strange, and if at the at the right point it would be worse than the orginal. So I just winged it.

[Stu Bowie]

Ben, your placement of the pelican in the repost works well. I would maybe take a tad off the bottom though. With regards to thirds, with larger subjects that cover a fair potion of the frame, its not always possible to create the thirds rule. Good exposure, light and colours captured, and this is nice and sharp.

[Arthur Morris]

I agree 100% with Stuart's comments. The basic rules for this type of image are:

1: Have 2 to 3 times as much room in front of the bird as behind.
2: Have more room above the bird than below. (Thus the recommendation to crop from the bottom.)

For lots more on this subject see "Advanced Composition and Image Design" in ABP II (916 pages on CD only).

[Ben Egbert]

Thanks for the comments on crop, I plan to get that CD. I always wondered how you determend placement in these cases.

[Arthur Morris]

Good plan. It is all there plus tons more. The catch is that you actually gotta read it!

[Ben Egbert]

CD on order. Here is a re-crop per suggestions. I had plenty of room at the left right and bottom, but no room at the top so I maintained a 2/3 front 1/3 back with an overall 2/3 image size ratio, and less bottom than top. Makes for a tighter crop.

[Arthur Morris]

Very good but it needs to be leveled. Then we will teach you to point your shadow at the subject (though I do not find the light from the right too objectionable here). Thanks for your order; it will ship on Monday.