Magellanic Penguin

Falkland Islands on New Years Day I was walking on the hill overlooking where I shot the Upland Goose. These little fellas kept popping up from their burrows and as soon as you started to move towards them - gone in a puff!

I laid down flat on my stomach, and used my backpack as a support and waited for the pop up. When the Magellanic appeared I quickly repositioned so that the head was surrounded by the darker foliage - enjoy!

Camera: 7D
Capture date/time: 01 Jan 10; 2pm
Light condition: very sunny
Lens: 300 f/2.8
Focal length: 600
Extender: 2X
Distance: 18m
Tube: none
Flash/Comp: no
ISO: 400
Exp Prog: Av
Speed: 1/1600 sec
Aperture: f/5.6
Exp Comp: +1/3
Metering: Evaluative
WB: Auto
AF Drive: AI Servo
Tripod: yes
Filter: None
Crop: 20%

Processed in LR3 and CS5 - plus Topaz Suite and Pixel Genius Sharpening.

All C&Cs gratefully appreciated!

Good shot and all the better for the story!

Jay, I really like the bands of color in the vegetation throughout this image. Really adds to the portrait of a black and white bird. Sharpness and exposure look right on too, though on my monitor it looks like you could perhaps take the recovery slider a bit farther right for the breast. Others may not see this so take it for what it's worth.

Cheers,
Greg basco

Jay: I really like this image. Moving to get the head in the reddish zone was a good idea and the general background is different from the usual penguin image. I agree with Greg that a bit more recovery of the whites may improve the image as it seems there is a spot on the breast that is blown.

I'm looking forward to our trip next year to the same areas as you visited. We had to cancel this year's trip because of Norm's illness, but looking forward to next year.

Glad to see you back posting again and looking forward to more images from your trip.

Linda

Hi Guys,

This is the posted image at +22. This is just a quick screen capture out of LR of the further processing of the dng file. It hasn't been sent to CS5 for further processing; shows in the difference in the background.

This is the image at +25 with the remaining clipping removed. On my monitor there is no difference. Do you see a difference to justify the further Recovery? I try to avoid pushing the recovery any further than absolutely necessary.

Jay in your original post the RGB values are reading 253 to 255 on the breast and collar with 255 being pure white they are to bright and clipped, on your third image while the clipping warnings are gone the values are still to high at 252 on the breast and 254 on the collar and yes I can see the difference on my calibrated 27 inch I5 Imac and it still looks to bright.
I took your original post which has a nice balance of tones on the rest of the image and corrected the breast and collar with blending mask and then a curve mask which added some detail on the breast but more importantly brought the values down into the 235 range on the breast and 239 range on the collar. Also your image was not tagged with a profile which can cause issues with viewers seeing the image differently depending which browser they are using.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Don Lacy

Jay in your original post the RGB values are reading 253 to 255 on the breast and collar with 255 being pure white they are to bright and clipped, on your third image while the clipping warnings are gone the values are still to high at 252 on the breast and 254 on the collar and yes I can see the difference on my calibrated 27 inch I5 Imac and it still looks to bright.
I took your original post which has a nice balance of tones on the rest of the image and corrected the breast and collar with blending mask and then a curve mask which added some detail on the breast but more importantly brought the values down into the 235 range on the breast and 239 range on the collar. Also your image was not tagged with a profile which can cause issues with viewers seeing the image differently depending which browser they are using.

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Hi Don, thanks very much for taking the time.

I too can see the difference in my images and your image.

Blending masks and curve masks - things done in PS that need to be learned! Would be wonderful for all to see in some type of tutorial how you read the intensity of the whites and applied the masks. Finally, what do you mean, "the image was not tagged with a profile"? Are you referring to the original image or the two quick screen captures?

No doubt I have a lot of learning to do and it never stops!!

Hi Jay (sorry for my english), good shot, the light so hard, and this avian with white´s and black´s it´s dificcult ... but i like
I see your page, good travel!!, I also view all your pictures from Ibera this is our paradise !! And you are taken a good guide Rodrigo (a big friend).
Congratulations and thanks for posting.
Cheers, Fer

Hola Fenando!!

Welcome to BPN; look forward to seeing your Ibera images. I have many more images from there to post and I am definitely going back someday.

Rodrigo is a wonderful guide; please say Hola! para mi and tell him we will all shoot together in the future.

Gracias, Jay


PS to the others from BPN that haven't heard/been to the Ibera Marshes: Ramon Casares highly recommended we visit Ibera and he was so right! It is a world class birders' paradise. If you are interested, PM me and I will send you information.