Splashdown!

[Rachel Hollander]

Another from Ding Darling. While shooting pelicans a few more decided to join the party. Ideally, I would prefer for the wing not to intersect the pelican in the bg but there wasn't a lot of room for them to land.

Canon 7D
100-400 @ 210mm
1/2500
f 5.6
ISO 400
Evaluative metering
HH, cropped to pano to eliminate oof pelican in fg and too much space, s/h, levels and sharpened in CS5.

C&C welcome and appreciated.

Thanks,
Rachel

[Ian Cassell]

Cool shot, Rachel! I like the action in this scene a lot. I don't think that intersecting wing is a problem. The front pelican looking at the newcomer draws your eye into the scene. I might be tempted to clone out those distracting egrets in the upper left and maybe even the pelicans on the left image-edge.

[Julie Kenward]

Rachel, I love the whimsy of the image and the blue water against the white birds...but that super dark BG is not doing it for me. If you had been able to move to your right a bit more and created the image without that foliage in the BG I think you'd have gotten a much stronger image. Of course the pelican wouldn't be coming right at you then! (It's alway something, isn't it?)

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Ian and Jules. The dark bg is a problem. Unfortunately, I couldn't move right as I was sitting on the shore and there was a big bush to my right. Also, as usually happens I was taking photos of pelicans that were in front of me when a few started flying in to the right, not enough time to run around the bush . I do have a series though of this one coming in for a landing.

Thanks,
Rachel

[John Chardine]

Interesting image Rachel. Well done to capture the moment of splash-down. The light is nice and warm although it is coming from quite an angle to your right and is producing some harsh shadows. I wish we could see the face of the rear left bird.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks John, you're right about the light. I was actually shooting in to the left when the action started on the right.

Rachel

[Linwood Ferguson]

Any more room above, to not have the head of the OOF bird right on the edge?

And maybe crop just a tiny bit more on the left so the neck of the pelecan is not on the edge?

I have no idea why those edge effects jumped out at me, and the one on the right not so much (but if you don't feel cloning is bad you could perhaps remove it).

Nice point in time for the capture.