American White Pelicans in Flight

[John David Cubit]

These photos were taken at the Salton Sea, California's largest lake, where American White Pelicans spend the winter.

1.


2.


3.

[Birma]

Very nice birds in flight John . I especially like #1 for that frame filling wing span, and #2 for the unusual view of a pelican. Great stuff!

[Dr. Harout]

All are exceptional shots, superb.
EXIF shows 420mm, what lens is it? Any teleconverter used?

[John David Cubit]

All are exceptional shots, superb.
EXIF shows 420mm, what lens is it? Any teleconverter used?

Thanks, Dr. Harout. They were shot with a Minolta 300mm f4 + 1.4 teleconverter on a Sony A900 (full frame sensor).

[aster]

Very, Very impressive, John.

Congratulations! Such high definition and excellent compositions....
You have captured beautiful shots. The second shot is especially good for fine snychronization of the two pelicans.

Thanks for sharing,

Yildiz

[mvanrheenen]

I can only second the comments above.

The image from the two pelicans is very good. They allign perfectly and that's hard to catch. Good job!

Mark

[Greg Beetham]

Those are excellent Pelican shots John, very nice photography indeed.
Greg

[jbtaylor]

The sharpness on the front bird in #2 is amazing. I never get anything that sharp.

[John David Cubit]

The sharpness on the front bird in #2 is amazing. I never get anything that sharp.

JB,
Getting sharp shots of flying birds is not as difficult as it may seem. The main things to do are:
1. Use shutter speed priority.
2. Always use a shutter speed of 1/2000th or higher, no matter how high you have to set your ISO. (Shooting white pelicans on a bright sunny day makes this easy.)
3. Pan with the bird flight, like a duck hunter with a shotgun. This reduces the movement of the bird relative to your camera frame.
4. Use something to help steady the panning camera. For these shots with the 300mm lens, I used a Bushhawk, which is like a gunstock mount. For the bigger, much heavier 600mm lens, I use a gimbal (Wimberley) head on a tripod.

Also, for mostly white or dark birds, it is best to use manual exposure set for the reflectance of the bird, not the background. Blown-out whites result in loss of details that cannot be recovered in processing.

Good shooting,
John

[Dr. Harout]

Getting sharp shots of flying birds is not as difficult as it may seem. The main things to do are:
1. Use shutter speed priority.
2. Always use a shutter speed of 1/2000th or higher, no matter how high you have to set your ISO. (Shooting white pelicans on a bright sunny day makes this easy.)
3. Pan with the bird flight, like a duck hunter with a shotgun. This reduces the movement of the bird relative to your camera frame.
4. Use something to help steady the panning camera. For these shots with the 300mm lens, I used a Bushhawk, which is like a gunstock mount. For the bigger, much heavier 600mm lens, I use a gimbal (Wimberley) head on a tripod.

Also, for mostly white or dark birds, it is best to use manual exposure set for the reflectance of the bird, not the background. Blown-out whites results in loss of details that cannot be recovered in processing.

Good shooting,
John

I guess this should be written in a special section of this site (preferably called: Guidelines).
Kudos to John.

[Wildieswife]

Cracking images. I especially like the second one - the reflected light has lit the underwings nicely and the composition of the two echoing each other's movement is very pleasing. The blue of the sky is great too. Just my view but I may have added a bit more blue at the bottom of this image.
All in all - very nice indeed. Lovely and clean and crisp.

Pat