Gentoo Penguin Portrait

[Verena Meraldi]

I'm going through my Antarctica images and this one got my eye. This is the typical scene by the time pairs are being formed or getting together again for mating: they spend all day stealing pebbles and other material used for building their nests from the neighbor. Look forward to your comments and suggestions as always!
Verena

Nikon D300, Sigma 150-500mm, ISO 400, 150mm, f 7.1, 1/2500, manual mode

[Jay Gould]

H Verena, very nice - I too spent a long time watching these little theives. What "group" took you to Antarctica; where was the image shot? I will share a couple of this type of behaviour with you and the others when we slow down for a couple of days.

[Mike Milicia]

Great behavior image! I like the pose and the exposure looks good.

Might just be the species (as I've never seen one) but eye looks a bit dull. Maybe it's the light angle? Also wish the dark area in upper left could have been avoided.

Great to see these images from a place that I would love to visit some day ... looking forward to more!

[Tony Whitehead]

Nice comp and behavioural image, Verena. Focus looks good. You could patch out the area of dark BG upper left and brighten the dirty snow on the right and then try a linear burn on the penguin breast to bring more detail into that area.

[Verena Meraldi]

Jay, the image was shot in Port Lockroy on the 16th of November last year.
Mike, I tried to make the dark area disappear, I guess the result is not that bad! :)
Tony, I also tried all your suggestions: here is the corrected image, I must agree that I like this image a lot better.
Thank you for your helpful comments!

[Tony Whitehead]

Good job on the repost, Verena.