Pelican on the River

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20240510-river-113.jpg
20240510-river-113.jpg2363×1890 2.74 MB

Critique Style Requested: Standard

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

Description

Pelican taking flight shot from a boat on the river. I have cropped and edited it in LR. I didn’t do much to the bird but tried to mute the background. This is one time I had wished I was shooting in burst mode as I may have captured a better pose.

Specific Feedback

Would it help to get rid of more of the background as the there is a lot of brush on the bank of the river? Would it help to not crop so tight and show more of the surroundings?

Technical Details

This was shot with a Sony AR 5 with a 200-600 Sony lens. 441 mm, 1/1000 of a second and F6.3. ISO of 320. Shot in the middle of the day. Edited in LR with masking the bird and then masking the background.

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1 Like
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Welcome to NPN and the Avian forum, Phil. It looks like you got the focus on the head of this pelican where it wants to be. The background is a little distracting, but there’s not a whole lot you can do about it with the brush catching the light. There are techniques that allow you to blur the background without blurring the subject, but LR doesn’t do them well, if at all. As for the crop centering the bird in the frame when it’s obviously moving in one direction tends to make it feel crowded in the direction the bird is traveling, so in this case, it might work better if you placed the bird further to the left and a bit higher in the frame. This can be done many ways, but for this image, I think cropping a bit off the top and adding back some of the area you cropped on the right would work best.

Pelicans, like all white birds tend to be difficult to expose using any of the automatic modes (including auto iso). I’ve found the best bet is to set the camera on manual exposure, focus on something white in the sun and make sure that I’m just barely not blowing out those whites. Then until the light changes, you’re set to go. In this case the top of the bird and a few other bright areas have lost detail. The back of the bird is particularly susceptible to this because you’re shooting it an an acute angle that tends to eliminate detail anyhow, so all you can do is minimize it.

The ideal solution is to get up really early or stay up pretty late and shoot in the nice light at the beginning and end of the day.

By the way, please remember that this community is built on participation of all members and that includes leaving your comments on other folks’ images. As a beginner, that can be hard, but just look at the image and decide what it is that makes you like it and that’s worth commenting on. If you can identify something that you think would make it better, that’s valuable as well. Forcing yourself to think about other people’s images helps you think about your own and you’ll find that it improves your photography much more rapidly.

Again, Welcome to NPN and I look forward to seeing a lot more of your work.

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Welcome to NPN Phil! Nice in flight pose with the trailing water drops and fine wing position. Agree with advice given by Dennis on cropping and exposure. Looking forward to seeing more including commenting on others’ posts.