Harry, the Pelican

All the locals and regular visitors to the San Clemente, CA pier know Harry, the Pelican. He's a permanent fixture at the end of the pier, where all the fishermen cast their lines. He so comfortable with humans that he will walk along the railing right up to a fisherman, and beg for squid or whatever fish they have in their bait bucket.

Note about the image of Harry with his wings spread wide and his head and beak reaching up to the left. His beak and head are not in focus, but this is not lens related. As I was standing only 3 feet away from Harry and focused on his chest and neck, when he suddenly lurched for the squid being tossed to him, his beak and head moved out of the focus plane that I was holding constant. I think my aperture was set to f/5.6 for this shot, which also would account for his movement not being covered by sufficiently stopping down the lens to keep more of his body and movement sharper. As he moves incredibly fast whenever there's a fish flying towards him, there could also be a little blur from movement of his beak (?).

Photos shot with K20D and one of the DA 15mm Limited "pre-production" samples we just received. As there can be slight differences between pre-production samples and final mass production pieces, I am always very careful in posting these type of images, and would caution that your results might vary from what I am seeing with this sample. As I have done in the past, my intention of posting these early images is to just give you an overall feel or sense how the lens will render images. Photos shot in RAW and processed in CS3. Click on any of the thumbnails to view a larger file.

I've also included a few other sample photos that I took very quickly, during our beach walk - to get an initial feeling for how the lens performs.