Home From the Southern Oceans Expedition

[Arthur Morris]

This image of a King Penguin resting on the snow was created at Fortuna Bay, South Georgia with the tripod-mounted Canon 500mm f/4L EF IS II USM Lens and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2 1/3 stops: 1/1600 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual mode. Central sensor/AI Servo Rear Focus AF and recompose.

The trip was both wonderful and physically demanding. Do see my first blog post on the trip: Rat Eradication Auction.

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

[Karl Egressy]

Very interesting pose captured. Nice soft ligt , great details and the white for- and background makes the bird stand out very nicely. Awesome image, Artie.

[dankearl]

Very nice and different pose and detail.
Should the pupil be darkened or is this the natural eye look?

[Randy Stout]

Artie:

Glad you made it back safely!

What a great subject, really pops, I like the head up, open bill.

I might be tempted to add a sliver to right, and crop a bit off the top, but I know you feel strongly about your crops, just how this one struck me.

Cheers

Randy

[Arthur Morris]

Very nice and different pose and detail. Should the pupil be darkened or is this the natural eye look?

Thanks Dank. I think that you are confusing the pupil with the iris.... The pupil is tiny and is seen here in the very lower part of the opened eye. This iris is sort of amber brown.

[Lorant Voros]

Welcome back, Artie. What a nice presentation of this beautiful bird. The white BG and the snow makes the subject pop. The open beak is a nice touch. Looking forward to see more from your trip.

[laurie golden]

Artie,

Sounds like a wonderful trip. I love the composition and that white background.

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Very nice Artie! I read the blog post, and it looks like both you and Denise dominated some shots :) Looking forward to seeing more.

[John Cooper]

The high-key canvas really makes the Penguin pop here, and the open bill adds imapct to the composition.

[Grace Scalzo]

A happy, pleasing image to view. Nice design and great colors. Glad you had a great trip.

[Don Nelson]

Thanks Dank. I think that you are confusing the pupil with the iris.... The pupil is tiny and is seen here in the very lower part of the opened eye. This iris is sort of amber brown.

OOPS - That's Dan Kearl, not Dank Earl..... I've made that same mistake myself....Dan's a local...

Welcome Back to warmth....

Excellent image. Exceptional light on this bird. Interesting pose. That snow really helps with the lighting.

Hi Don, Thanks for your comments. I know that dankearl's name is really Dan. I learned that when we met on the field workshop. I call him "Dank" in an effort to be funny since he knows that I know :). Am headed for Bosque where it will likely be much colder than even South Georgia some of the time.

[arash_hazeghi]

excellent pose and great exposure

[Shawn Zierman]

Love the image design, and the exposure is spot on. Great subject
animation....Are you sure that the nictating membrane is not covering
the eye? The eye is the first thing and only thing that struck me as slightly
"off" about the image....

[girisholeti]

Beautifully executed. Colors on the bird looking gr8 on white BG. Is it only me seeing a smudge near the top tip of the beak?.

[Daniel Cadieux]

That is an awesome pose, love the extensive detail on the plumage. I love high-key, so that works very well for me. I'm wondering about the eye too, and it grabbed my attention immediately even before reading the comments...aside form the pupil there are two other dark points that make it seem odd.

P.S. Welcome back!!

[Arthur Morris]

Love the image design, and the exposure is spot on. Great subject animation....Are you sure that the nictating membrane is not covering the eye? The eye is the first thing and only thing that struck me as slightly "off" about the image....

Shawn, Dan, and to some degree, Dank :),

Here is a tight crop of the eye of the optimized image.The pupil has been darkened. As you can see in the image in this pane, the eye is clearly not centered in the socket and thus, the whites of the eye are exposed to some degree. See the next pane as well.

[Arthur Morris]

And here is roughly the same area in the converted RAW file. The faint pupil is circled in yellow. I am pretty sure that it is the dark line with the two smudges (seen below the pink line) that is confusing folks (including me). Penguins have weird nictitating membranes in that they are usually quite translucent. That said, if that dark line is the nictitating membrane why does it appear to be going vertically rather than horizontally as with most birds?

[Arthur Morris]

Beautifully executed. Colors on the bird looking gr8 on white BG. Is it only me seeing a smudge near the top tip of the beak?.

Thanks. The smudge is snow :).

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Artie, excellent exposure and detail, and the colours really opo from the snow/ice BG. Love the pose with the open bill.

Welcome back.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

real cool image. Interesting pose and I like the white/pale blue bg

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks all. Randy, I like it as cropped :). Funny thing is that I originally cropped it tighter but I screwed up the BKGR and went a bit wider after starting from scratch.

[Amol Khedgikar]

Wow Artie!

When I think I have seen all the poses a penguin can give you come up with this. Beautiful colors as well.

+2 1/3 stops ?

How did that not blow the BG? Did you shoot in AV mode?

Do you mind sharing your broad workflow for this?

[Arthur Morris]

Wow Artie!

When I think I have seen all the poses a penguin can give you come up with this. Beautiful colors as well.

+2 1/3 stops ?

How did that not blow the BG? Did you shoot in AV mode?

Do you mind sharing your broad workflow for this?

With all that white snow it took +2 1/3 stops to get data far to the right in the fifth box. I generally like to bring my WHITEs in with RGB values topping out at about 230 but with high key snow as here 250 is fine.
Workflow was simple: convert in DPP, level and crop, NIK Color Efex Pro Tonal Contrast painted in on the bird only.... Visit the blog daily to learn a ton more.

[Jim Crosswell]

Great image Arthur! I like the pose, open beak, exposure control, sharpness and composition.

[Frank Schauf]

Nice composition and excellent expsoure control and sharpness.