Peter Eastway's Better Photography Magazine

You're not allowed to walk within 10 metres of the penguins, but if you sit down, there's nothing stopping the penguins from walking within 10 metres of you!

When we visited St Andrews on the east coast of South Georgia Island, there were literally tens of thousands of penguins as far as the eye could see. As it turns out, we were a little early in the season as the majority of the population was thought to be still at sea feeding. In a few weeks, all the spare ground between the current penguins would be occupied by tens of thousand more!

One of the photographs you can be guaranteed of when visiting a penguin colony is a great shot of a penguin. Sit yourself down within10 metres of them, pull out your camera and wait. You're unlikely to wait more than five minutes before a few of them wander past. Sometimes they are actively interested in what you are (most of us were dressed in a bright red jackets and pants with Peregrine Adventures emblazoned on the back, so we were hard to miss), but more often than not they are simply intent on their own activities and oblivious to your presence.

The best camera for shooting wildlife is probably not the Phase One 645AF I used for this photograph. In comparison to the Canon 1Ds Mark III I had with me, it is too slow to focus, although I am told the new Phase One 645DF camera is much quicker. However, after shooting penguins and elephant seals with the Canon, I decided they weren't moving that quickly and wondered what it would like to photograph one with a 60-megapixel digital back!

I sat down with my camera and 300mm lens on my tripod and waited. We had overcast lighting which is good and bad. It's good because there are no difficult shadows to deal with, but it's bad because the colour can look a little cool and flat. I distinctly remember how really strong and vibrant the King penguin feathers are.

Every now and then, a penguin or two would wander by and when they stopped to observe me, I would focus and shoot. The image you see here has been cropped because the original exposure had the penguin's eye bang in the middle where the autofocus gunsight sits.

What I like about this image is the series of penguins in the background. Shoot at f6.3 (which is near wide open) at a close distance, there is very little depth-of-field. In fact, if you zoom into this photograph to look at the penguin's eye, you'll see just how quickly depth-of-field drops off. You'll also see (amazingly) a touch of camera or subject movement - I'm not sure if it is caused by mirror vibration (I normally shoot my landscapes with the mirror locked up to avoid this) or subject movement (I asked the penguin to stand still, but he wasn't listening). Nevertheless, with 60-megapixels to play with, I'm sure most people will forgive these infidelities as overall I think the photo works quite well.

Make sure you press all four buttons on the image above, including the full-screen button. I'll post a few more images like this which will give you a good idea of what the photograph really looks like. And I'll have to be extra careful I don't leave too many dust spots lying around now you can look at them so closely!

Phase One 645AF with P65+ back + 300mm APO

f6.3 @ 1/200, EV -1, ISO 50

This version of the image can be enlarged using the four controls on the photo. Roll over with your mouse to find them. The far right control gives you a full screen view. As you enlarge, you may need to wait a short time while the high resolution files load.