Jackass Penguin

[Stu Bowie]

I went to Boulders Beach in Cape Town during my holidays, where these penguins nest. These guys are totally wild, and one can walk among the rocks and see them in their natural habitat. As we only arrived here at midday, this was shot in harsh light, and I lost detail in some of the whites. Im actually quite surprised at the sharpness I achieved with such a slow ss.

Canon 50D
100-400 @ 300mm
1/250
F/9
ISO 400

Exp Comp +0.33
Hand Held

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Very nice portrait, I like the soft light, sharpness, eye contact and BG. Some of the blacks around the bill are blocked, probably due to jpg conversion.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi David, This looks great. You did fabulously despite the harsh light. The whites do not look bad at all. Do they show as clipped on the TIFF? Love the BKGR and the sharpness. And the perfect head angle. This species looks a lot like the Magellanics on the Falklands.

[Stu Bowie]

Axel, Artie, thanks for your kind words.

Artie, Im actually dissapointed with my penguin visit/shoot, as I was shooting with a +EC, and blew most of the whites on most of the images. The highlights were flashing on my camera screen, but most times Im not concerned, as I recover them perfectly in RAW. Unfortunately I didnt go back for another shoot, ( I could have ) but will learn on my next visit there.

[Daniel Cadieux]

The light doesn't look harsh to me...was it slightly overcast? Just wondering as midday harsh sunlight would have given you much higher SS? I'm with Artie as the whites do not look bad at all (Artie, who is David anyhow?:D). I even see water drops on the chest! Great BG with the touch of colour in the ULC - very nice.

[Jonathan Ashton]

The background looks fairly neutral in terms of tonality, the black plumage is dark, the white pale, so without wishing to be a smart --- I would have left the metering on neutral or perhaps -1/3 and used a little fill in flash -1... does anyone agree/disagree?

[James Salywoda]

Such an awesome portrait Stuart I really like the detail and colors captured very nicely done.

[Arthur Morris]

(Artie, who is David anyhow?:D).

David is Stuart's alter-ego only Stuart doesn't know. Only my brain knows it... Ooops. Sorry Stuart. Now I get the brain typo: David Bowie.... Ah, the brain works in strange and mysterious ways. Yikes. And I do not even like David Bowie....

[Arthur Morris]

Stuart, Are you saying that you could not recover the highlights on this image? (What are you using to convert?)

[Stu Bowie]

Artie, I am using ACR 5.5, and I did manage to recover the highlights - just some areas were fairly hot, like the top of the head where I feel Ive lost a bit of detail. Then Im using CS4 to process the rest of the image.

[Arthur Morris]

Artie, I am using ACR 5.5, and I did manage to recover the highlights - just some areas were fairly hot, like the top of the head where I feel Ive lost a bit of detail. Then Im using CS4 to process the rest of the image.

Best to use "bright" rather than hot. Hot to mean means over-exposed. There is only a smattering of over-exposed pixels in the JPEG and I suspect that the TIFF is better. Normally doing a Linear Burn on bright whites will increase the density nicely and restore detail. When I did that on this JPEG the white gots CYAN/GREEN muddy and very dark at 100%. I went back to about 12% and desaturated the Whites totally. It would likely work better with the TIFF.

[Stu Bowie]

Great work, and thanks a stack Artie. When you say you desaturated the whites, did you select just the whites only?

BTW, no relation to David Bowie ;)

[Arthur Morris]

I selected just the brightest whites with Select/Color Range (moving the Fuzziness Slider to the left after the initial click) and softened up the selection with Refine Edge at 0/0/2/1/0 or something close to that :)

All of course as described in Digital Basics :)

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Hi bro
Excellent portrait and some good advice given by the Mistress, err sorry Maestro. :D :p :)

love the sharpness, detail and don't be surprised that IS works.

BTW glad you are not related to David Bowie, otherwise you'd be walking the streets at night in your pajamas.

[Todd Frost]

Very nice portrait and some great advice given above. TFS
Todd

[Tony Whitehead]

This individual has very Magellanic feature with the black neck band which is usually white in African penguins. I have seen some with these Magellanic features at Boulders but seem quite uncommon compared to the typical African pattern. Very nice portrait Stuart. I always find the light very challenging there as it get bright so early.

[denise ippolito]

Stuart, Beautiful sharp details on your portrait of a very cool looking penguin I've never seen. Very nice repost by Artie.

[Dave Barnes]

'David' :D you did very well in the harsh light. Arts repost rocks, so does Bowie,s portrait. Love the BG.

[Stu Bowie]

Thank you all so much for the kind words. Much appreciated.

[Vida van der Walt]

Stu, excellent close up and I love the detail in this. So sharp and a lovely clean bg.:)

[Declan Troy]

Artie, not too surprising that this reminds you of Magellanic Penguin. Folks working with Magellanics also see birds with them that have Jackass features. It turns out that they are very similar and there may still be limited gene flow between the populations. Some biologists suggest they are conspecific. Humboldt and Galapagos penquins are a bit more divergent but of similar ilk.

Lovely portrait.

[Stu Bowie]

Vida, Declan, thank you so much for the kind words.