Royal penguin

New to the forum, looking to learn. Enjoy observing and photographing wildlife in general, which includes a lot of birds! Generally I mainly only do gentle editing in Lightroom, I am sure with critic here I will need to develop a more sophisticated workflow...

Taken on Macquarie Island (Aust.) December 2016, Royal penguin walking up the rocky beach.
Canon 1DXII 400/2.8 handheld.
f6.3, 1/1250, ISO 1600
Full frame, except cropping for aspect ratio from sides. Minor adjustments in Lightroom. Cloudy day, so gentle light.

Thanks,
Greg

Greg, welcome to forum. Nice first image, a few suggestions, a little more room on the bottom and left (maybe a 2x3 crop ratio), lighten the eye a bit and the head angle "if" you can get it looking towards you a bit.
On the plus side nice details, background and colors.
Looking forward to seeing more.

-Tim

My nickname is penguin, so I love these guys.

The exposure looks fine..maybe brighten around the eye a bit.

It's ok with me...but some might have a problem with the right
foot being somewhat obstructed.

How's your cloning experience? That rock that's obstructing the
end of the tail? Maybe try to clone the tail so it's in 'front' of the
rock.

Doug

Greg, just noticed this so sorry for coming in late. This looks very good to me. Background is excellent and detail, tone and colour on the penguin look very good. As noted the eye is a little dark so may be worth selectively lightening shadows in that area if it will bring out a touch more detail. Your point of view is great but if mine, I would have tried to get a little more on the bottom of the frame - noting this is already full frame for height though. Nothing you can do about this after the event except to add canvas, provided this didn't clash with your ethics - it would also be a little tricky with this shot to do it convincingly. Still an excellent shot.

Thanks Doug and Glenn. Actually when I joined I thought I would start in Eager to Learn, since I am, but for some reason this dd not get through moderation to posting for several days, and in the meantime I posted directly in Avian. Comments were similar about the eye and the one hidden foot. I haven't done any cloning, it is a skill I will develop once I have some more time, generally I prefer to have the shot close to real, and I shoot in bursts to get the best I can naturally from a situation.
Greg

Welcome Greg. The bird is too big in the frame for a horizontal. Vertical would have worked well here and you would have had more room below the bird and more green above it, both plusses. Sharp with a good exposure. In time, you will learn to lighten the iris that is actually underexposed because you have properly exposed for the WHITEs. I do like the raised foot.

Did you get to the location on a trip by ship?

with love, artie

Hello Arthur, thanks for the observations on the composition, I agree it would be good vertical, I probably just didn't anticipate him coming up in front of me there to react in time.
And yes, Macquarie Island is only accessible by ship, with an exclusivity of no more than 1000 tourist landings in a year.
Greg

YAW and thanks Greg. What company did you go with? Were the landings photography-oriented?

with love, artie

Operated by Heritage Expeditions, sailing from the southern tip of NZ. My trip was not a photographic trip, but they were quite good at accommodating the demands of photographers on the landings when they could. I have seen some wildlife photographers doing group trips on the same itinerary, probably more photographically oriented. I am sure they would gladly work with you if you wanted to take a group.
Greg

Many thanks Greg. Getting down there is on my bucket list ...

with love, artie