White Pelicans at LSU

The White Pelicans have returned to LSU.  Without additional comment, here are some shots from today – all taken with the 7D and 100-400mm zoom.

Flying Pelicans

 

More White Pelicans at the LSU lakes…

PAW 52

Almost, but not quite, every year, White Pelicans come to the lakes around LSU.  They’re quite a sight feeding, floating and flying around but it’s surprisingly difficult to get an interesting photo of them.  When I learned that the White Pelicans had returned, I essentially pre-determined that they would be featured in Picture A Week.

While driving around the lake searching for the pelicans, to my surprise, a mass of them were feeding near an edge of the lake – almost in a corner.  Although I could not park nearby, it was only a short walk to return to the scene. I was able to get perhaps ten yards away from the feeding frenzy. 

The above photo was taken with my Canon 7D fitted with 100-400 IS zoom at 100mm.  Exposure was 1/1250, f8 and ISO 800; shot in RAW and post processed in ACR.  I like the still photo but it really doesn’t do justice to the event.  I also used the 7D in movie mode and assembled this video using Adobe Premier Elements version 9.

White pelicans at LSU Lake

Swing with LSU

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When my friend Jason wanted a photo of his pride and joy LSU golf club, I came up with this version of a swing.  For this effect, I used five layers in Photoshop and applied a bit of motion blur and distortion to four of the layers.  The four motion layers are each a rotated copy of the base layer.  The base layer was made by propping up the club and then cloning out the props.  This not the kind of thing that I usually do in Photoshop; in fact, I'm pretty weak on most Photoshop effects and trying to learn more about them.

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More White Pelicans

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On a nicer and better lit day than the previous shoot, I again tried the 7D versus the white pelicans. This time, I used a polarizing filter with the 100-400mm IS lens. I stayed a long time, filled up the 8GB card, edited the card, filled it again, edited it again and filled it again – all on the same battery! I was impressed.



Sometimes I was shooting birds in the sky, sometimes birds in the water and sometimes birds against a backdrop of foliage. I experimented with the auto focus settings as well as Av and manual exposure modes. It seems to me that the best results were with the single center AF point and AI Servo in manual exposure mode. Usually the exposure was around 1/1000 at f8 and ISO 800 (about two stops lost to the polarizing filter).

All in all, I was happy with the 7D and am beginning to feel better about my own skills with it. Here are a few of the better shots.

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7D: White Pelicans at LSU

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Adjoining Louisiana State University are several small man-made lakes and one larger lake, University Lake. Apparently these lakes were dredged from swampland many years ago. University Lake has a nice walking path – about 4 or 5 miles around, I think. University Lake is a also good place to try new photo gear. One of my favorite photos was taken here. I finally got a chance to try the 7D with the 15-85mm at the lake and got the shot above plus a few ducks. Then the pelicans returned.

White Pelicans are sometimes seen during the late fall in these lakes. Apparently the LSU lakes are a convenient stop-over on the migratory path from Canada to South America.

The White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) is a large bird some four to 6 feet tall with a wing span up to nine feet. Although predominately white, their wing tips are black and their bill is orange.

These large birds are graceful in flight but, unlike the Brown Pelican, do not dive for food. Instead of diving, White Pelicans work together to gather fish while swimming. Watching a flock of White Pelicans swimming, it is easy to imagine that they are herding fish! Each bird is said to need about four pounds of fish daily.

White Pelicans are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty of 1972.

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Egret and Sunset Catch

The lakes at LSU are a great place to try out new equipment and get in a nice walk at the same time. My son and I certainly enjoy it. A few years ago, realizing that my old tripod was a bit flimsy, I had just bought a new one and took it for a hike around the lakes. On this new, heavy duty tripod, I mounted my trusty old Konica T2 along with another purchase: a very used Vivitar 300mm lens. By adding a 2x teleconverter to the Vivitar 300mm, the old Konica was looking through 600mm of focal length!

Even though the tripod was steady, the Konica plus 2X plus Vivitar sitting on top of it was not exactly motionless. Even so, we had a nice walk while I experimented with the equipment and a roll of Kodak Ektachrome E100VS – a highly saturated transparency film designed to produce very colorful slides.

The end of our hike, the last few shots on the roll and the close of the day were coming together nicely. We set up our cameras for a few closing shots. I spotted an egret standing patiently on a submerged stump near the middle of the lake and took a shot. Then, ignoring all advice about shooting directly into the sun, I relocated. Aligning the egret with the sun, I waited for something to happen. Surely the egret would fly away at any moment but nothing happened. Meanwhile, the sun continued to sink. Disappointed and giving up, I turned my head and yelled to my son that we should be going. Naturally, this was when the egret struck. I yelled in disappointment but recovered in time to get this shot.

I like this picture a lot. It was planned (well, sort of), pushed my equipment to its limit (well, a bit past), original (to me anyway) and reminds me of a nice hike with my son.