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.

Beach Walk with the 7D

Perhaps because its firmware had just be upgraded, I naturally picked up the 7D this morning for a walk around the beach.  Although some are saying that focusing is quicker with firmware 2.0.0, if so, I didn’t notice it.  This is not to say that focusing is slow with the 7D, I just did not notice a change.  In fact, this morning, I did not notice any changes at all from the firmware upgrade.

Perhaps I was really just walking although I did grab a few shots using the 70-200 mm zoom – my usual choice for walking the beach. 

For this shot, I was wishing for the 100-400mm zoom at max zoom; instead, this image is cropped to about 1/4 of the frame.  This just goes to show what you can get away with so long as the display is on screen over the ‘net.

While walking, I suddenly realized that a dolphin was surfacing and grabbed a few shots – again wishing for a longer lens but with considerable cropping turned out OK.

None of these are particularly outstanding shots but, with the walk, made for a pleasant morning.

Flying Pelicans

 

More White Pelicans at the LSU lakes…

7D: White Pelicans at LSU

.

.

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.

.

A Return to the Great Reify and Redact Project

Having completed the PopPhoto 2007 Shootout, it is time to complete the Reify and Redact Project. Here are two more pictures for my portfolio.

On my birthday a few years ago, these pelicans put on a great show and I was in the right place with the right equipment. The evening sun was low and the marsh grass was glowing. This was a case of “F8 and be there” and I was there. My wife calls this picture “Happy Birthday”.

Not so happy, but quite beautiful in its own way, this pier, damaged by Hurrican Katrina, was glowing in the early morning light. I bracketed several exposures and was rewarded with a very nice photo. About a year later, I realized that those bracketed exposures could be combined to make a High Dynamic Range image. I like the HDR version even more than the original.

PopPhoto Shootout 2007

OK, so I didn’t win, place or show. I didn’t even make the finals in the 2007 Shootout contest sponsored by Popular Photography and Imaging magazine. But I did finish the assignments and had a good time doing it. More importantly I learned a lot and am a better photographer for having participated.

But I sure wish that even one of my shots would have been published. Hmmm, I have this blog and …

This year was the third year for PopPhoto to sponsor their great shootout. Their procedure for the first two years was to select three finalists, bring those photographers to New York and give them three days of tough photographic assignments. This year, the entire contest was conducted over the Internet.

The first phase was to register and submit four photographs: a landscape, an action photo, a portrait and a product photo. I sorted through some of my favorites and quickly entered all four.

Naturally, I first selected one of my favorites, Wallace, which has already been posted here and will be included in my Reify and Redact project as well. The other selections were




It seemed to me that between two and three thousand photographers registered but some entered only one or two photographs. Some entered more than four. At the end of this first phase of the contest, there were nearly seven hundred fully qualified entrants and I was hanging in there.

Next, the assignments ...