Taken from James Shadle's pontoon boat in early September
EOS 1D MKIII
500mm f/4L
Tripod and wimberly II
1/1250
f/5.6
iso 400
manual mode
evaluative metering
I really like this, Joel. The slightly OOF pelican provides some added dimension and interest. The pelican that's landing looks great - sharp with good detail and the shadows and water reflection are lovely. I wish there was a little more room at the bottom because as is, it doesn't look like he has anyplace to go.
I think the angle and wing position of the landing pelican is excellent, as well as overall exposure and detail. Unfortunately, in my opinion of course, the uneven lighting is a problem. It was caused by a combination of shadow and uneven wave reflections,and it is a distraction.
The image has a magenta cast, on my monitor at least.
I'm not sure about the inclusion of the OOF bird either. Since you have CS5, I would use the polygonal lasso tool to draw a rough outline around the OOF bird and its reflection, then go to Edit/Fill/using Content-Aware. After the fill remove the outline. Just a suggestion to see what it would look like very quickly. regards~Bill
I also liked the opening post but now that I see it in the repost I think its much stronger. I do want to give you kudos for the way you managed to frame the one pelican with the wings of the other - excellent timing!
I definitely like the addition of room on the bottom for him to land into (good eye Maureen!). I don't mind the uneven lighting at all - I think it adds a really nice bonus as my mind makes the connection between the white lines and the water. Excellent exposure - did you need to do much in pp to get it that way or did you nail it in the field? Impressive, either way...
The exposure didn't need any tweaking in pp and the water reflections were just there in the raw image as you see them, I routinely tweak shadows/highlights , levels and some sharpening but that's about it. Oh and also NR on the background.
I was following this bird as it came in from quite a distance and it landed right in front of the other one so it was in the frame sort of by luck rather than a plan but I like it.
Brown Pelicans
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