Gentoo Penguin Splat

[Jay Gould]

For a description of this behavior, see Gentoo Penguin Rising http://birdphotographers.net/forums/...762#post442762

I'll bet that was a fun landing!! :p

Camera: 7D
Capture date/time: 3 Jan 10; 4PM
Light condition: fading
Lens: 300 f/2.8
Focal length: 300
Extender: none
Distance: 26m
Tube: none
Flash/Comp: no
ISO: 400
Exp Prog: Tv
Speed: 1/1600 sec
Aperture: f/6.3
Exp Comp: none
Metering: Evaluative
WB: Auto
AF Drive: AI Servo
Tripod: yes
Filter: None
Crop: 50%
Processed in LR 3 (beta) and then CS4 - plus Topaz Suite and Pixel Genius Sharpening.
All C&Cs gratefully appreciated!

[Tony Whitehead]

Ouch! - just as well they have a nice padding of feathers.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Jay - love the behavior and the action :)
Looks a little contrasty on my screen and it is quite busy making it hard to figure out what is going on - there is no one point were my eye immediately locks onto and holds my attention.

Just IMHO!!!
Keep em coming

[Jay Gould]

Yup! Very busy - since this is ETL, how would you show this "splat" behavior? This is a 50% crop and I couldn't imagine cloning away all of the other penguins. Seriously, I am not being defensive. This is a behavior presentation - how could I do it differently?

[Lance Peters]

Not suggesting to clone away - just a general comment - dont think you could do it any better.
At least not unless you were David Atenborough and had a Penguin CAM.

As I said Love the behavior and action.

[Harold Davis]

very cool behaviour shot, jay!! if there is any way to add some canvas up top and left, i might. give them some room to travel into. agree with lance. it is a little contrasty, but it's also a fun image.

[Jay Gould]

Guys, this is ETL - how do you add canvass with such a busy background? Who wants to do the tutorial so we all can learn?? :confused:

These guys were moving so fast because of the fear of being eaten I would have thought 1/ 1600 would have been fast enough. The rig was tripod mounted and all I was doing was pushing the wireless shutter release each time it looked like the were going to be coming out of the water.

[Richard Waas]

Jay, I'm not sure you could have done anything more that you did to capture this funny scene. I would back off the contrast a wee bit. Exposure looks great on my screen. Thanks for sharing, we don't have these guys in Miami.....

[arash_hazeghi]

Jay, man did I start laughing as soon as I saw this image, it must be really slippery! Excellent timing on this one. poor guy that must hurt! TFS!!!!!

[Mike Tracy]

The underlying "problem " with this image is the tonality through out the frame too closely matches your subjects. I can't suggest any quick fixes that come to mind to make the penguins stand out from their surroundings or really tell you what you could have done differently at time of capture. That said, it is a nice photo that captured your experiences and documented this behavior. Not every shot we take will be an award winner but that doesn't make them any less worth while. The splat is priceless.