Yesterday I was fortunate enough to meet Thang out at San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary. It was cool talking about bird photography with him. I still can't get over the fact that he hand holds his Nikon 200-400 VR lens. Impressive shooting. Anyways, while were were chatting, in flew a flock of about 30 American White Pelicans. They put on a nice little show for us with their landings.
1) They flew into this pond in pairs or one by one.
5) These guys were actually more difficult to expose than the diving brown pelicans. The sun was very bright and these guys were like big white flying reflective billboards. I normally shoot at ISO 400 for late afternoon fliers but these guys were so hot that I was capping out on my shutter speed at 1/8000th sec for many of these shots. I had to set my exposure compensation to -1, so luckily I wasn't blowing out too many highlights. In hindsight I should have dropped my ISO to 200. However, sometimes when the action is fast and furious, I simply forget to check my histograms.
7) It was interesting watching these guys come in for landings. They are kinda picky when it comes to their landings. Sometimes as they are coming in, they will spot something they don't like and will pull up and circle around and come in for another try. This is much like F-14 Tomcats coming in for a landing on the deck of a aircraft carrier. If they miss the hook, they will hit the afterburners and launch off the deck again to circle around for another try. I guess even pelicans want to be cool like fighter jocks.
These are awesome images. I'm hoping to see some white pelicans soon here in San Diego. I glimpsed some the other day but they were more than a hundred yards away. I think #3 is my fave here but they're all great.
Shasoc wrote:
Beautiful images and excellent job with the exposure, Hung.
I like them all with #2 and 4 being my my favorites. Thanks for sharing,
Socrate
thanks socrate.i've always struggled with blown highlights when shooting white birds in bright light. i think i'm getting better though. thanks for stopping by.
Rob Keaton wrote:
These are awesome images. I'm hoping to see some white pelicans soon here in San Diego. I glimpsed some the other day but they were more than a hundred yards away. I think #3 is my fave here but they're all great.
hey rob. i've been seeing more and more white pelicans around here. i'm sure you will be coming across more of them in the next following weeks. these ones tend to come to the wildlife sanctuary to bed down for the night. i usually get out there about 2 hours before sunset to catch them coming in. best of luck to ya and thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment.
