Sunrise Flight of the White Pelican

[Justin Reznick]

Taken at Ding Darling Refuge during a brilliant sunrise. I was shooting with a 400mm f/5.6 and the pelican banked towards me. There was nothing I could do but clip the wing. I love the light on the pelican and want this to be a sold image but do I have to let it go? Thanks for the feedback!

Canon 7D
400mm
ISO 400
f/5.6
1/2000 sec.

[arash_hazeghi]

Nice incoming Pelican, a few points, the clipped wing is hurting the composition, in this case I would crop tighter and clip the other wing too to make comp more symmetrical and balanced. Light angle is not ideal and has created a blue cast on the top feathers and some deep shadows, noise is hurting the image too. I would reprocess this image improving the crop, getting rid of the cast and raising the shadows a bit, finally run NR to get rid of noise, hope this helps and TFS

[Axel Hildebrandt]

The light, sharpness and BG look great but aside from the clipped wing, the strong shadow on the bird hurts the image. I would run some NR on the BG.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

You could possible copy the intact wingtip! Why not try?

Love the light, and while the shadow mentioned by Axel is strong, I don't mind at all. Looks so warm and inviting overall. congrats! :)

[Xristos Zo]

I really enjoy the BG