A pelican hiding inside of a pelican

brown pelican (female) - Nikon D300 with Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens @ f/4 ISO 800 1/400thPelicans are very malleable birds.  Though they may not be very beautiful or majestic, I think if I had to live life as a bird I might choose to be a pelican just for how many different ways they can fly, swim and rest in.  One of my long term photography goals is to photograph a pelican at near eye level as it just skims over the surface of the water.  In the meantime, I still find pelicans in new positions I have not seen before.  

The above female brown pelican had her neck turned 180 degrees with her beak resting between her wings in a homemade feather pillow.  Using my Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens @ 200mm I did not disturb her at all to make this photograph, but I cannot tell for sure if she was sleeping with one eye open or not.  

I wondered what she was dreaming about.

DSLR Photography Lesson #2 on The Pier with Henry & his Sony Alpha A230

Henry setting up a shot using his Sony Alpha A230 and newly acquired Tamron 70-300mm lens on The Pier in St. Petersburg

Henry took his first DSLR Photography Lesson with me back in April.  Then he had no telephoto lens.  After the lesson he began doing research into which lens to get and last week his new Tamron 70-300mm f/4-f/5.6 lens for his Sony Alpha A230 came in.  This was all just in time (lens arrival and our 2nd lesson) before his big trip to Costa Rica today.  Rain was definitely threatening out ability to have a lesson out on The Pier, but in the end we were pretty lucky having plenty of time to practice using his new lens outside before the rain returned and we took cover in a very deserted Pier food court.  

It was very overcast outside, so I had Henry adjust his exposure compensation to give his shots a little extra light.  A number of pelicans and some trash eating birds were our practice subject matter.  His new Tamron lens had a macro setting which we turned on some old screws in a forgotten section of a lower dock.  Macro photography and external flash are definitely linked, and I showed Henry that how you point the light direction makes for a very different photograph.  We found that bouncing the light off the white wall that was connected to the dock produced a very pleasing light fall off across our exposed screw subject matter.  If there is no white wall next to what you want to shoot?  Well, just have an assistant hold a reflector for you!

The last part of the lesson was a surreal off camera flash lesson inside The Pier itself, mostly in the food court area.  I cannot say I had ever been in a more abandoned feeling public place in Florida before.  Not a single customer in the entire food court.  This was good for us as we were able to take up all the space we wanted to in practicing off camera flash with appropriate white balance in mixed/horrid lighting conditions.  

I am looking forward to seeing Henry's shots of Costa Rica when he returns. 

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Florida Bird Collection Series - 001 Great Blue Heron, Brown Pelican, Pigeon & Seagull

Great Blue Heron - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1600 -0.67 ev

There are birds all over Florida.  Great Blue Herons like the one above are often seen on beaches, and even on back patios!  This series is meant to be a modest and/or amusing collection of random bird photographs.  When I first looked at that great blue heron, I thought it looked like it was in prison.  So since I could not get a clean shot of the bird, I chose to make use of the obstruction.  I just made sure to use a single focus point and put it right on the GBR's eye.

Seagull (with bokeh) - Nikkon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/8 ISO 200 1/800thThere is no more common bird than a seagull (assuming one lives by the sea).  Why I chose this photograph was for its ultra creamy bokeh produced by the fantastic Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens, a great bargain alternative to the much more expensive Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm VR f/2.8G lens (not even to mention the crazy expensive VR II version).  I first bought my 80-200mm lens (a used one) just under two years ago, and was amazed by its bokeh the first time I shot with it, and remain so to this very day.  

(rainbow?) pigeon - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/4 ISO 200 1/1250thMaybe the pigeon is more common than the seagull in Florida?  Still, I chose to include this photo because of the repeat of color on the pigeon's neck matching the color of the bokeh.  With bird photography, bokeh can really enhance a shot from just being a snapshot of a common bird to a photograph of a common scene shown in a way that cannot be seen by just standing there.  The quality of bokeh actually varies greatly between lenses.  Before the 80-200mm lens, I had the Nikkor AF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G lens.  At first I thought the latter's bokeh was good.  However, upon first seeing the bokeh produced by the 80-200mm, I was stunned at how much creamier it was.  Selling the 18-200mm lens was the first thing I did out of learned photographic knowledge.

diving brown pelican - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G lens ISO 400 f/4 1/5000thThis female brown pelican was a millimeter away from breaking the water's surface in search of her dinner.  I made sure to use a very fast shutter speed in order to be able to freeze her plunging dive.  Thankfully, she made dive after dive so had several chances to capture her.  However, like all of these shots, I was not out to purposefully photograph birds at the time.  Three of the shots I made while teaching a DSLR photography lesson and the other was made during a portrait session.  Nowadays I do not have much chance to to photograph Florida's many birds, hence the start of this collection series!

Sitting Pelican at Vinoy Park

One day I will photograph a pelican like this just skimming the water's surface.

I have stated before in another blog post my desire to photograph a pelican just skimming over the water, and how after a few attempts I am yet to be successful.  Well, I was not even close with this shot of course, but I could not pass up a chance to photograph such a friendly and accomodating bird.  Actually, I was not the only one to photograph her/him.  Kelley during our first DSLR Photography Lesson did too.

To me a pelican is a SUV of a bird.  It's a rather large bird, can hold a lot of stuff in its billowing bag of lower jaw skin, can dive and crash into water in a nose dive unscathed, and they are all over the place.  Since they are always around and not really afraid of people, you get the impression you could just go up to one and hug it, though I have never actually tried.  

If you want to find one when you visit Florida, just head to any fishing pier.

Free iPhone Wallpaper - Tin Type Pelican in Flight

free iPhone wallpaper -- Brown Pelican in Flight in Saint Petersburg Florida in tin type processing

Start your work week off with a free new wallpaper for your iPhone or iPod touch!

For several weeks I have had an ongoing project to photograph a pelican just skimming over the water's surface.  I have not yet been successful in making that image, however in that pursuit I was able to make this in-flight shot of a brown pelican.  I chose tin type processing for this image because a few weeks ago I went to an antiques fair and had a chance to browse some true tin type prints and was fascinated about how vivid some of them remained even though they were printed over a 100 years ago.  

I hope to be able to provide a shot of a pelican skimming over the water soon!  In the meantime, it is always fun for me to photograph birds in any manner.

A high resolution print of Tin Type Pelican in Flight can be purchased here.

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My full (and growing) collection of iPhone wallpapers can be viewed HERE and are available for just $1 each.

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 To Install the wallpaper onto your iPhone:

1. Right-click or control-click on the image.

2. Select “Save as…”

* Mac users:  save the image to a folder or add it to your iPhoto library.

* PC users:   save the image in your “My Pictures” folder.

Connect the iPhone/iPod Touch to your computer and do the following:

1. Launch iTunes, click your iPhone icon on iTunes, choose the Photos tab, and select “Sync photos from:”

2. From the pop-up menu, do one of the following:

* If your using a Mac, choose iPhoto or your Pictures folder.
* If you’re using a PC, choose My Pictures folder.

3. Choose Folder, then choose any folder on your computer that has images.

4. Choose “All photos,” or choose “Selected folders” or “Selected albums” and choose the folders or albums you want to sync.

On your iPhone:

5. Launch the Photos app. Browse through the albums or Camera Roll until you find the picture you wish to use.

6. Select the picture so it is displayed full screen.

7. Tap the icon in the lower left corner of the screen. If you don’t see the icon, single tap the picture to display the menus.

8. A menu pops up with three options: Email Photo, Use as Wallpaper, or Assign to Contact.

9. Choose “Use as Wallpaper"

Thanks to Photo Focus and Scott Bourne for the directions above.

All iPhone/iPod Touch Wallpapers are provided without any technical support. Each image is a 320×480 jpg file. All images are Copyright Jason Collin Photography, All Rights Reserved. You are granted a single use, non-exclusive, perpetual license to install this wallpaper on any iPhone or iPod Touch personally owned by you. This license grants you the right to use the wallpaper for non-commercial/personal use only. You may not re-sell, distribute, print or otherwise publish the image without the express written consent of the Copyright owner: Jason Collin Photography