Bolsa Chica Brown Pelica

Gallery: AvianPosted November 26, 2011106 views4 comments

This photo was taken at Bolsa Chica Wildlife Preserve in Huntington Beach, CA November 24, 2011. The past several weeks, the Pelicans have been abundantly feeding in close proximity to the bridge across the lagoon. 95% of the dives were so close to the bridge that the birds were inside my 200mm focal length. We could have touched them as they flew down and we wondered how they avoided the pilings. We often had 8 or more Pelicans diving at the same time. It was very overcast that day.

Nikon D300 Nikon 200-400 lens
f/4 1/640
ISO-800 -1 step
focal length was 200 mm The subject distance was 29.9 meter
aperture priority RAW
The image was not cropped or extended. Photoshop
Comments and constructive criticism are appreciated.

Comments

4 comments

Comment posted by Patrick O'Healy on November 26, 2011 at 3:05 PM

I originally tried to adjust this image in CS5 and am not happy with the resolution. I went back and did it over in Elements following the directions closely. This is the second iteration. I also extended the frame an cropped the image to give him room to fly/dive into.

Registered on March 13, 2011, 326 Posts, 1679 Comments

Comment posted by Keith Bauer on November 26, 2011 at 8:27 PM

HI Patrick: You caught a nice moment with the Pelican diving. The first version felt pretty centered. The composition on the second is better. The added canvas on the bottom looks a bit odd with the obvious repeating patterns in the water. Based on the smaller image (the larger version isn't any bigger), the exposure looks like it might be a bit hot on the whites of the neck.

Registered on November 20, 2003, 458 Posts, 4836 Comments

Comment posted by Patrick O'Healy on November 26, 2011 at 10:17 PM

Keith,
Thank you for your feedback. Can you help me with an alternative to repeating the water pattern at the bottom? Perhaps it is obvious, but it eludes me. I am much happier with the resolution of the image above where I used CS5, but agree that the composition is better below. I could not see the composition challenge above until I posted it.
Patrick

Registered on March 13, 2011, 326 Posts, 1679 Comments

Comment posted by Ron Dudley on November 27, 2011 at 8:22 PM

Patrick, I much prefer the comp of your repost. You caught a nice dynamic flight posture and the bird looks sharp at 1/640 at this size. Agree with the issue mentioned by Keith involving the repeating patterns in the water of the repost. This must have been a fun experience for you, I'm envious.

Registered on March 30, 2007, 437 Posts, 10915 Comments