Pelican landing. head-on

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

40D. 400 f5.6L. iso 400. 1/800s. almost full frame. some cleanup done on the water.

I was lying low to photograph the Pintails and this guy decided to come in for landing very close to me. Had no time to change iso. As you can guess, wings got clipped in the actual landing shots. However, I am happy with this one.

All comments welcome.

[Randy Stout]

Kaustubh:

Nice to see a white pelican against some fall colors, not a common sight for me.

Good head on pose with both eyes showing, head clear of wing merge, nice foot display.

Effective framing.

I might consider just a bit of burning of the trunks of the tree behind the bird since it runs up to the head.

Cheers

Randy

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Kaus, good head on capture here, and with the Pelican looking straight at you. I like the slight banking angle, and the big fellow is well exposed. Lovely autumn colours to the foliage in the BG.

[dankearl]

Beautiful fall color and a cool pose. It looks like a big goofy duck here head on.
A different look, very nice.

[Jim Fenton]

Really like the fall colors.

Whites look good.

While it is head on, it looses a bit of it's "pelicaness" at this angle perhaps?

Legs appear a bit to hot on the orang / reds relative to the brighness of the rest of the image.

Those diagonal branches coming from the right intersecting the subject really bug me. Just being honest :)

[Daniel Cadieux]

Neat, those fall colours for a pelican are very intriguing for me too. Bummer about the brighter trunk and branch, but the rest of the BG looks great. I like the incoming pose and "down the barrel" HA.

[Robert Holguin]

Excellent shot. Great landing pose, exposed well, love the massive wing span, and great background.
Well done.

[gail bisson]

I really like this! I would clone out the tree trunk on the right as it distracts from a great image. Exposure is perfect.
Gail

[Ishmeet Sahni]

Kaustubh, love the colours behind the bird. Very nicely taken.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Thx everyone. agree abt the tree trunk. hard to blur BG behind such a large bird at this location. Its a small bay in the corner of a lake surrounded by tall trees.