Gentoo

[John Chardine]

Still trawling through images from my 2009 Antarctic season and this one of a Gentoo Penguin caught my eye. It is quite a challenge to capture the shadows and highlights in these birds and get detail in the eye. I was determined this year to do it.

Crop and sharpen. Eye was lightened a little (dodged). Whites were calibrated in LAB colour.

Comments welcome!

Canon EOS 50D, 70-200/4 IS @ 200 mm
capture date: 24 November 2009
exposure program: Manual
ISO speed: 640
shutter speed: 1/1250
aperture: f7.1
exposure bias: +0.0
metering: Pattern
flash: OFF

[Marina Scarr]

John, you did a wonderful job with this capture. You have nice muted light, a good angle and the work on the eye looks good to me. The only thing I would do is crop a little tigher to eliminate some of the dead space on top.

[Sid Garige]

Fantastic exposure control John. Excellent job.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Beautiful bird, I like the soft light, sharpness and BG. I like the idea of a tighter crop and am wondering if the blacks could go a bit darker, although I don't know if they look gray or black in reality.

[Dave Leroy]

Very nice photo John. I really like the nice clean feel to it, and the dof is a great choice for showing off the bird. I also prefer the tighter crop of the repost. Dave