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Thread: San Diego Pelican

  1. #1
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    Default San Diego Pelican

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    just back from a wonderful experience at Artie's San Diego IPT. There was an incredible amount to learn, great birds and really nice people. I'm hoping that i'll retain some portion of all the information Artie offered.

    this wasn't the technically most perfect image, but i loved the sense of soaring

    canon 7d, ef70-200 2.8 + 1.4x , 1/8000 sec at f/5, -1.3 EV, iso 800, aperture priority, handheld

    just about full frame, a little canvas added at the bottom so i could rotate it a smidge, usm and nik nr in cs5

    appreciate your looking, and any suggestions for improvement you might offer. self-critique - i sure wish i had thought to trade some of that ss for more dof
    Last edited by pat lillich; 01-25-2011 at 12:33 AM.

  2. #2
    Julie Kenward
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    Very nice, Pat! Glad you had a good time at the IPT. I'd look at giving it a little more room at the top of the frame also as his wing is pretty close to the edge there. Good details, nice aperture and ss combo, and beautiful colors!

  3. #3
    Peter Farrell
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    An excellent capture. I like the flight pose, detail, colors & BG. I agree that a little more room on the top would help.
    Peter

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    Wow! Pat, this is a beautiful image. Sharp, detailed, good exposure. Would have been nice to not be so tight on the frame on the left as well the top and bottom, but just a smidge. I would call that being somewhat picky, as I really like this image.

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    BPN Viewer Dave Leroy's Avatar
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    A lovely looking image.
    I think you hit the nail on the head to pull the wingtips into focus. Still very nice dof as is.

    I am with Tom for a little room on the three sides closest to bird.

    Very well done.

    Dave

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    I agree this is excellent. I am struck by the wonderful detail and sharpness of the image. I like the wing angle and overall posture of the bird. Agree with adding more room, which given the BG, could be done fairly easily.

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    Hi Pat:
    I love the picture. Its beautiful.
    Can you tell me why you gave it -1.3 ev?
    Thanks

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    Frankly, this does not belong in ETL you should put this in Avian and graduate to avian forums. :)

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    thanks everyone - it was a wonderful trip. And the light on the cliffs at La Jolla was incredible. I was focusing a lot on getting comfortable swapping tcs and lenses and trying to retain the info of why you would be better off with this combination or that one. Artie laughed at us - we still had the tcs carefully in their little fabric bags and it was taking forever to pull them out of my pocket, unwrap them, get the caps off and swap one for another. He showed us that he had his just sitting in his pocket, without even the caps on. It was very freeing -

    hey Reza, that was a typo - I meant to type -1/3 rather than -1.3 --- The light was changing a lot, and we were photographing cormorants (very dark) gulls (very light) and the pelicans with both dark and light - and you needed to be dialing in + or - ev for each situation. He said for the most part, on the Canon, to dial up the exposure till you saw blinkies then dial down 1/3 stop. Tried that and it worked really well. Photos were much sharper when exposed as far to the right as possible.

    by the way - I should have included that the focal length was 250mm for this.
    I'm attaching a copy with a little canvas added on the 3 sides, does this look better? It looks like I should have done some more careful cleanup of the addition on the left.

    Sid, I'm honored. thank you so much. If I can get a few good photos posted in a row, I'll work my courage up for the big leagues.

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    Excellent image, great detail, exposure, and position of the pelican phenominal. Simply avoiding shadows from wings, etc, falling on other parts of the bird is extremely difficult, and you pulled it off!
    Good advice was given on getting proper exposure, and you nailed it.
    Adding canvas helped, though I think you still need a bit more on top.
    regards~Bill

  11. #11
    Brendan Dozier
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    Pat, that is a fantastic action shot! Great light, detail, sharpness, and color. The lighting is pretty even across the bird, and you nailed it on the exposure. What a great experience for you, sounds like you had a lot of fun.

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    Hey Pat, Wonderful image and lots of great advice above. It was great meeting and working with you and with Alan and the rest of that great gang. Heck, this is a superb image; top shots are hard to come by and the wing positions and the head angle are dead solid perfect. As is the exposure. -1/3 stop with the 7D would have been my first choice for this one to prevent burning the whites with the lens pointed down at the blue water.

    Hey, don't be too hard on me; when I rolled one of my 1.4X II TCs into the Pacific Ocean, it did have the caps on it :) For the whole story and a good laugh, click here.

    As I said numerous times, "Universal advice for better flight photography, zoom wider." :) (That is much easier said than done).

    I would be very proud to call this one mine :)
    BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.

    BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.

    Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,

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