Brown pelican in breeding plumage

[gail bisson]

Another one from Artie's workshop this past February in SW Florida
Canon 1D MK IV
F 70-200mm with 1.4X.
ISO 400
SS 1/2000
F 7.1
Brought in close by the fish we fed them.
I love the light and landing pose.
Full frame, rotated in LR3 by 1.45 degrees and detail extractor at 4 % and tonal contrast.
Comments and critiques always appreciated and learned from with thanks,
Gail

[Stan Cunningham]

Love the light on his face Gail, nice job.

[arash_hazeghi]

lovely pose and nice details he has sure engaged the breaks. One thing I would have preferred is more separation between peli and water BG but I can see that was not possible given the short lens you were using.

[gail bisson]

lovely pose and nice details he has sure engaged the breaks. One thing I would have preferred is more separation between peli and water BG but I can see that was not possible given the short lens you were using.

You are right Arash. This guy was very close . I was at 180mm,
Gail

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Nice show of those wings Gail. I like the water too . The image looks a little bright to me like maybe a little too much contrast?

[Ishmeet Sahni]

A very nicely taken image....have to agree with Cheryl regarding the the brightness and the contrast....

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Gail, good landing pose with the raised wings, and I like the detail and colours on the head and bill. Im fine with the 'brightness' as it is the finer detail of the underwings that gives the impression that the image is too bright. If anything, I would move the pelican a little more into the frame. ( I realise he is sitting on the left third of the frame )

[christopher galeski]

very nice,good pose,agree on a bit more room on the left.well done.

[gail bisson]

Thanks for the help. I decreased the brightness (-3 in LR) and contrast ( -10 in LR3) on the image although I think my problem was oversharpening so I backed off on that in the repost. I am still on the fence re: adding more canvas on the left as this is a full frame image,
Gail

[Marina Scarr]

The repost looks really good. Love the wings and angle on this one. My first thought when I saw the thumbnail was that the pelican needed to be moved slightly to the right but this is also subjective.

[Bill Dix]

Hi Gail. Very nicely done to compose him FF as you did. And his wing/head position adds nicely to the comp. Repost is a slight improvement over an already-handsome OP.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Gail, loved the wing position. lots of sharp details and good exposure. One way to get nice BG blur in a flight shot of a large bird like a Pelican is to go lower. But I can understand the problem here...with a short lens, if you go low, the wide field of view is going to bring in a lot of stuff (that may not be ideal) in the BG. Distant sea like they have in San Diego is ideal.

[dankearl]

The repost looks nice as well as the OP.
I think just a larger aperture would have given a bit smoother BG, With f4 being wide open,
you were stopped down maybe bit much with that lens. f5.6 might have been a better choice.