Blue Sky Rockhopper Advice: When the Light is Bright: Think Tight and Get Right on Sun Angle

What’s Down

I typed this blog post at 1pm on Thursday, October 29, 2015 on Saunders Island where we—denise, and Billie and Brian Snell–were staying in the cabin at the Rookery . It is rather nice, a lot less rustic than we were expecting. It is only a five-minute walk to the first Cliffside albatross nest and about a half hour to the Rockhopper Penguin colony. There is lots of great photography along the penguin highway. From there, it is an easy five-minute climb down to the famed rockhopper shower.

We are scheduled to fly back to Stanley on Friday October 30, do a morning van trip to the Kidney Point Rockhopper colony on Saturday, and then board the Ortelius for our Cheeseman’s South Georgia Expedition early on Saturday evening.

While traveling in the Southern Ocean I will be 100% without internet from 1-14 NOV. Jim will be in the office doing his usual stellar job of minding the store and Jen will be here to help with with all things IPT related. You can reach either of them by phone at 863-693-0906. You can reach Jim by e-mail or Jen at e-mail (the latter with Attn. JEN in the Subject line).

Please refrain from e-mailing me from 23 OCT through 15 NOV. Fat chance on that. 🙂

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This image was created on Bleaker Island, the Falklands, with the hand held Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens (at 220mm)and the amazing Canon EOS 7D Mark II. ISO 400. Evaluative metering -1/3 stop: 1/1000 sec. at f/9.

Two AF points to the left of the center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). The active sensor fell on the middle of the bird’s bill. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.

Rockhopper Penguin flapping in place

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When the Light is Bright: Think Tight and Get Right on Sun Angle

When the light is bright: think tight and get right on sun angle. And that advice goes double when you are working with black and white birds. You are of course welcome to disregard the advice above by using a wide angle lens and employing side light. When you get a really good one, be sure to shoot it to me via e-mail it to me.

As for exposure, you will want to push the WHITEs to the right to the point where you have a smattering of blinkies that can almost always be recovered during the RAW conversion. Why? To maximize detail in the BLACKs. You are actually viewing the embedded JPEG on the rear LCD.

And yes, this is true for all mid-level and high-end digital cameras of all brands. As JPEGs are always more contrasty than the corresponding RAW files, it means that you have that much more latitude when pushing the exposure to the right.

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