Cleared for Landing?

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

I have never visited Point Lobos park in California before and enjoyed trying to capture different scenes than I normally do. Waves and birds keep grabbing my attention. This Pelican was coming in for a landing which seemed to not be welcomed by the Cormorants. I wonder what all 3 are thinking.

Specific Feedback

Does a story come to your mind on viewing this image. Any technical feedback welcome as I’m new at bird photography.

Technical Details

400 mm f11 1/1000 at iso 640


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Welcome to the Avian forum, Steve. This is a really cool situation that sparks a lot of interest-like where does the pelican think its going to land? The shadow of the pelican over one of the cormorants is particularly effective. I don’t know if you cropped this at all, but ideally it helps if there’s more room on in the direction the bird is moving than in where it came from (there are exceptions). In this case, it might be helpful if there were less room on the right and more on the left, particularly if you could have gotten more of the pelican’s shadow on the rocks. It’s all relative, of course, so more room on the bottom and the left might work without trimming the right hand side.

Your camera settings look pretty good-maybe a bit faster shutter speed if you wanted to stop wingtip flutter completely (an artistic choice, not a requirement).

Despite all that text, this is a really cool image.

Nice image Steve and good points by Dennis above. 1/1000s worked well in this image for a big, slow bird but a faster shutter would help with most bird in flight captures. Good view of the eye/head of the pelican and fine wing position.

Great capture. Definitely tells a story. Given the look in the pelican’s eye, it seems to be saying “out of the way” and the cormorants don’t seem particularly concerned. Nice landing pose. The composition looks okay since it appears the pelican wants to land close to the water.

I like this moment although some more landing space would br nice. I’ve been to this pelican rookery at Point Lobos several times and enjoyed the photographing possibilities from the hiking trail. You bring back fond memories. Thanks.

Nicely seen and shot, Steve. You captured a very dynamic pose. I would like to see the pelican a little more to the right, rather than the center. There also appear to be some haze on the heads of the two cormorants. Not sure if it is the lighting or an artifact of processing.

Thank you all for taking time and commenting on this shot. I did crop some of the rock off as there were other Cormorants there and it looked more distracting than just showing the 2 birds that had eyes on the Pelican. I will go back and edit the Cormorants eyes as I agree I was too heavy with the brush tool with the shadows.