Entries in pelican (15)
Brown Pelican Bird in Flight St. Petersburg Florida Fine Art Nature Photography
Monday, January 23, 2012 at 4:08PM Jason Collin 
Brown Pelican preparing to dive St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1250th
Regular followers of my nature posts will know that I am very fond of photographing the many local brown pelicans in my St. Petersburg, Florida neighborhood. I have not yet achieved my long-term goal of photographing a pelican skimming just over the water, but I was glad to be able to add these images to my pelican portfolio. On Saturday pelicans were regularly diving out of the sky into the water for fish around The Pier. Once getting the settings dialed in using shutter priority mode and multi-point focus, it was just a matter of tracking the birds fast enough as they made their dives.
Brown Pelican on an aerial fish survey - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/6.3 ISO 200 1/1250thThis collection of pelican images focuses on the birds as they are about to make a plunge into Tampa Bay hoping to come up with a beak-full of small silvery fish. Observing a bird's behavior is key to being able to capture the photographs one wants. I watched where and how they circled and what they did with their wings right before their split second descents.
Brown Pelican wings arced for diving in St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/6.3 ISO 200 1/1000thDuring this shoot I also became, at long last, a believer in shutter priority mode. With the pelicans diving from a bright blue sky background down to the dark waters of Tampa Bay, I knew what shutter speed I needed to freeze their flight, but adjusting the aperture constantly to maintain the correct exposure would have been nearly impossible. Thus, shutter priority was the best exposure mode to use for these bird-in-flight images.
Brown Pelican hovering before diving in St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4.5 ISO 200 1/1250thI also used multi-point focus because I was able for the most part to fill the frame with the pelicans, allowing the 21-focus points to act as a net. If I could not fill the frame with the pelicans, well, I probably would not even push the shutter, but in that case I would use a single focus point to place right on the bird to distinguish it from any other possible background elements. In relative close-up shots like these, the multi-focus point setting gave me the best chance of landing a focus point on the subject (pelican) where a single focus point might get lost under a single wing flap.
Visit The Pier for great pelican and bird-in-flight photography opportunities:
Canon XS DSLR Photography Lesson Birds in Flight with Suzanne St. Petersburg Florida
Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 4:33PM Jason Collin 
Suzanne impressively was not afraid to get eye level to her subject even on surfaces of questionable cleanliness.Suzanne (see her photos made during this lesson) and I were back at The Pier for our third of four DSLR Photography Lessons. Our goal this time was to capture birds in flight, one of the most challenging things to do in photography. In particular, I wanted us to be able to make a shot of a pelican right before it breaks the surface of the water in a dive. On our walk out to The Pier I advised Suzanne on the best settings we could use, namely:
- shutter priority mode @ 1/1000th of a sec
- ISO set to lowest possible
- WB sunny
- focus mode: AF-C (Ai-servo)
- multiple focus points (since the birds would fill the frame from our location)
Thankfully, the pelicans at The Pier were in a near feeding frenzy with birds regularly diving all around us. It is really something to witness this act of nature up close. It is also really something to try and photograph the act as there is at most one second between dive and water entry.
I showed Suzanne my technique of using the lens as a scope to track the bird at distance, rather than keeping one's eye behind the viewfinder when trying to locate the bird. Then once in shooting range, quickly dip your eye behind the viewfinder and the bird will be in frame, more easily ready to be photographed.
The weather was great and the bright sunshine felt welcome, as was the breeze, pretty much ideal DSLR Photography Lesson conditions.
Canon XS DSLR Photography Lesson at The Pier St. Petersburg Florida with Suzanne
Friday, December 23, 2011 at 11:53PM Jason Collin 
Suzanne at The Pier in St. Petersburg chooses pelican or egret for her next shot on our second DSLR photography lesson.It seems Suzanne and I only meet for DSLR Photography Lessons on holidays! Our first lesson together was right on Halloween evening, and today's second of four was on Christmas Eve, Eve. By this reckoning I predict our next lesson might be on Groundhog's Day perhaps! It was another exceptionally warm December day in Florida, some 10F above what is "normal" for this time of year. Suzanne wisely wore her hat, I should of as well.
For this second DSLR Photography Lesson Suzanne said she wanted to practice making scenic shots. Meeting at our usual spot on Beach Drive in downtown St. Petersburg, we made our way out to The Pier for that purpose. We began by reviewing the four basic settings that need to be correct in order to make a properly exposed and in focus shot as we walked out to The Pier. She showed me some of her recent San Francisco trip photos that did not come out as well as she would have liked, so the first order of business was to show her how using different settings would have helped those shots.
We ended with some bird photography which cannot be helped on any trip to The Pier as all the sea birds there are practically posing to be photographed. For our third lesson, we will try to capture the birds in flight, a challenging photography skill.
Two heads are better than one - Florida Pelican Fine Art Photography
Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 4:03PM Jason Collin 
quizzical brown pelican - Florida Fine Art Photography - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G lens @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/160thThe many brown pelicans that make St. Petersburg home are a frequent photography subject of mine. These birds are often very approachable, allowing one to look deep into the bird's eye, a rare human-non-human-animal close-up encounter. I am always curious what animals are thinking. Since they supposedly have a much different perception of time, how does this affect how they think? If pelicans cannot think of the far future and who knows how far back their memories of past events go, what occupies their minds? Perhaps nothing enabling them to live in a blissful present? I often get the impression pelicans look upon humans with contempt, "go on with your life and quite gawking at me," I imagine them saying. Are humans the only animals that feel wonder toward other animals? Does a pelican look upon a great blue heron and think it is beautiful or merely a competitor for food?
unimpressed brown pelican - St. Petersburg Fine Art Photography - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens @ f/4 ISO 200 1/1250th
Florida Brown Pelican Fly Hunt Sleep at The Pier St. Petersburg
Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 10:41PM Jason Collin 
FLY -- Brown Pelican in flight St. Petersburg Florida -- EXIF: f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1250thRegular readers will know that I enjoy and often photograph brown pelicans. They are not a rare bird around this part of Florida at all. In fact, it would be rare to go to any coastal area of St. Petersburg and not see one. However, I find myself continually drawn to photographing them despite my usual instinct being to not photograph things that are commonly photographed. Plus, I have a bit of unfinished business as I still want to photograph a pelican in flight hovering just over the surface of the water as they are apt to do. Catching one in flight like above requires seeing the bird approach from distance, tracking it as it swoops in, then of course have sufficient shutter speed to freeze it in mid-air. Maybe some luck is required too?
HUNT - brown pelican looking for lunch at The Pier St. Petersburg Florida -- EXIF: f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1600thI used my Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G lens for all these shots. It is not a very long lens but The Pier provides a very close vantage point for photographing pelicans as they fly, hunt and sleep. To photograph these three different female brown pelicans I observed and studied their behavior. Of course the sleeping one was not a challenge, but the flying one took a sharp eye to find and photograph and I needed to follow the hunting pelican from pier top to pier top until I could catch her while still standing at the ready.
SLEEP -- brown pelican catching a little shut eye at The Pier in St. Petersburg Florida -- EXIF: f/5.6 ISO 200 1/800thAs these photographs illustrate, brown pelicans do not all exhibit the same behavior at the same time of day. Some flew, some hunted and many slept. One day, I will photograph one of you skimming over the water's surface! Until then, expect more pelican photographs of another nature.