Photographing Little Penguins

[David Kembrey]

Hi everyone, off to Bruny Island next weekend and was wondering on any hints and tips regarding photographing the Penguins at dusk, I know not to use a flash but was wondering if a LED torch with red cellophane would work??? Im using a K10D

thanks in advance

David

[Seesee]

Never really taken Penguin pix at dusk, but I think the flash may not be regarded well by the authorities or the Penguins, and i think maybe the red cellophane over a torch will simply give a red colour cast to the images. Might be better to take a tripod, set aperature wide and shutter speeds slow, ISO as high as you dare to allow as much light on the subject as you can. At dusk there should be quite a bit of available light anyway with good camera settings and try to position yourself with the sun setting behind or off to the side for a better exposure as it will help to light up the dark subjects without too much fear of blowing the highlights.....good luck with the little blighters :)

[David Kembrey]

Thanks for that Col, guess i will crank the ISO up on the pentax and finally see how it handles it

[ricktas]

David, not having seen many high ISO shots from a K10D, and if you have not done it before either, might be a good exercise to get in the backyard at dusk (around penguin time), snap off a heap of shots at differing ISO's. Firstly to see at what point your shutter speed is viable and also to then look at the shots on your PC to see what noise is produced by the pentax as you increase ISO.

At least doing this, will give you an idea of where the best ISO point is for quality, before you shoot. After all, why go to ISO 1600, if ISO 800 proves to work well. Your other limitation is going to be AF, depending on your lens, you might find the camera hunts in low light and won't focus lock. You might need to consider going to location a bit earlier, setting yourself up, finding a point to focus on that the penguins will pass through, and locking focus, or switch to manual focusing.

I have never taken photos of the little blighters, can't wait to see your results.

[David Kembrey]

Thanks for that Rick, was thinking of doing that tonight, see what happens with this wind though.I will post the penguins when I get back next weekend

[ricktas]

Thanks for that Rick, was thinking of doing that tonight, see what happens with this wind though.I will post the penguins when I get back next weekend

Tassie weather is amazing. I have no wind at my place, but its been raining for the last 90 mins.

[David Kembrey]

Yeah no rain that I know of in Sorell but blowing the "what I am now calling" the regular gale off the lagoon