What a catch
A Puffin with it's catch on Skomer Island in West Wales
A Puffin with it's catch on Skomer Island in West Wales
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Jun, 2018Views
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Awards
Top Shot Award 21
Peer Award
Top Choice
Absolute Masterpiece
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Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo on a daytrip to Skomer Island in West Wales UK. They run every day during the Summer except Mondays. The island is World famous for it's large colonies of Puffins, Guillemots, Razorbills, various Gulls and Manx Shearwater. It also has lots of other birds like Little Owls, Short Eared Owls, Oystercatchers, Choughs plus many more. It's a magical place that every wildlife photographer should visit.Time
This was probably taken in the middle of the day.Lighting
I had to be off the island by 3pm just as the light was improving but I managed to prevent the highlights from blowing in this shot. You can book to stay on the island which would be lovely for the late afternoon light, I hope to do that next year.Equipment
When I took this I used a Sony A350 and a Sigma 50-500mm f5.6-6.3 lens. I hand held at 1/2500th of a second, ISO 200, F7.1 and 500mm which would have been 750mm with the Sony's 1.5x cropped sensor. There's not much room for a tripod on the narrow path at The Wick, where the main Puffin colony is but I have managed to use one there when it's not too busy.Inspiration
I love Puffins and wanted one with a beak full of Sandeels, I've managed to get quite a few but this one is still my all time favourite, I will of course keep trying to better it.Editing
I don't usually do a lot of processing, only what needs doing like Levels, sharpening etc. This one is a vertical crop from the centre of the original landscape image, nowadays I would turn my camera at the taking stage rather than crop like this whenever possible. You have to be so quick when they land with eels as they have to get into their burrows as fast as they can before the gulls attack them so you just have to get the best shot you can.In my camera bag
Nowadays I use a Nikon D3 and Nikon D500 with a Nikon 200-500mm and Nikon 70-200 VR2 lenses. I carry a 1.4x and a 1.7x teleconverters but rarely use them.Feedback
The best advice I can give you is to GET DOWN LOW, the puffins are less than a foot tall and there's no point taking photos of them standing up from eye level, it amazes me how many photographers with expensive equipment do just that, you'd think they'd know better wouldn't you?, the Puffins are sometimes literally just by your feet so unless you want a shot of the top of their heads you need to get down to their level. You'll often find me laying in the dirt on my stomach just to get down to eye level with these magnificent birds. Try to find a bird that's isolated, sounds easy but in a Puffin colony it can be very difficult, I sometimes look for group shots too where there's some kind of interaction going on. Backgrounds are almost as important as the subject so I choose my background first and try to get a puffin against it whenever possible, I will move around to achieve that. I keep my aperture relatively wide to knock the background out of focus, f5.6 to f7.1 at most. Expose to the right but make sure you protect the highlights, if they're blown then the detail is lost, you can recover shadow detail much easier though. I always shoot in RAW, I used to shoot RAW + JPEG but found I never looked at the JPEGs so it's only RAW now. I now use "back button focussing" using the AF ON button with my thumb and it's the only way to go, it's brilliant, my shutter button is now only for taking the photos. The main thing of course is to enjoy the experience of actually being there to witness this wonderful spectacle.
