Juvenile Brown Pelican

[Joel Eade]

Alafia River, Florida....an outing with James Shadle

1D MKIII
500mm f/4 IS USM
Tripod + Wimberly II Gimbal head
f/5.6
ISO 400
1/1250
Manual mode
Evaluative metering
AI Servo mode

ACR and CS5

[John Chardine]

Hi Joel- Another nice incoming image. I like the crop which implies movement to the left, although it's tough not to put the bird's body right in the middle. I have a lot of trouble with crops like this. The overall sharpness is good, except for the eye which is a little soft. I used the sharpening tool over the eye- 3 clicks at 100% and 5 seconds later I was done.

[Cheryl Flory]

I'd also try increasing the blacks in the eye, and try some more canvas on the left. really like the pose.

[Julie Kenward]

Hey Joel, you clipped his wing! Poor little guy, how's he going to fly with only part of a wing? :)

Like the rest of the pose and the implied motion of his coming in for a landing. Beautiful lighting on his feathers - might try to bring up the darkness in the top area of the BG just a bit more.

[Maureen Allen]

Jules, I don't see where the wing is clipped?

Very nice shot, Joel! I wonder if he had a little more room at the bottom and a little more to the left, whether that would improve this or not. Just thinking out loud here, as I often do :)

I need to find this Alafia River, it shouldn't be too terribly far from me.

[Joel Eade]

Thanks for looking and commenting....I see what I can do about the crop, it was somewhat awkward.

Maureen, the Alafia River goes into Tampa Bay at Gibsonton, between Tampa and Sarasota. I went out for a single day with James Shadle on his pontoon boat....we actually went out from the mouth of the river just a short distance into the bay around some small islands. It was a great time, I highly recommend it and will do it again as soon as possible.

[Maureen Allen]

Thanks, Joel. I'll check that out.