Atlantic Puffin Calling

[colincarter]

Atlantic Puffin taken on the Farne Islands.
For once the weather was good to me, calm sea, blue sky, no wind.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 70-200 F2.8 VR with 1.4x teleconverter
Shutter speed 1/1250, Aperture F7.1, iso 250, ev +1/3

thanks for looking

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3569/3693640190_e4f6800879_o.jpg

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Very nice image Colin. Love the raised head and calling pose. I suggest you crop above the OOF rock in the LLC. :) Thanks for sharing.

[Kobus Tollig]

Ditto the crop and you also have some bg noise. Great exposure and pose. Great shot well done

[Kiran Poonacha]

Great pose of details... The open bills really makes this.. one more vote for the crop..

[David Fletcher]

Another vote for the crop Colin. The calling pose and angle of view make this for me.

[Stu Bowie]

Its the first time Ive seen an open beak from a Puffin, so well done for capturing the moment. Excellent exposure, and another vote to crop off at the bottom.

[David Smith]

Very nice... I love the HA and the open mouth.. The colors and sharpness is outstanding.. And, another vote for cropping the OOF rock out..

Dave

[colincarter]

thanks everyone for all your great comments and for the heads up about the crop, i will crop it later when i have access to the original and repost the shot here.

best wishes

Colin

[Axel Hildebrandt]

The calling pose is pretty cool. Adding to the other comments, I might lighten the inside of the mouth a bit and wish the eye were not partially covered by the nictitating membrane. It looks as if there is a slight S/H halo around the neck area.

[Erich Stevens]

The open bill makes this one very special. Great job on the exp, I can see lots of detail in the whites.

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

I really like the exposure and the singing pose!!!

[Raymond Barlow]

well done Colin, a very interesting and uncommon look at the puffin., great job on the exposure, and pp.

[colincarter]

thanks guys for all the comments.

I've taken on board all the comments about the crop, eye covered by membrane, noise in background etc, halo around neck etc and here is the new edited version, what do you think?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3502/3752714314_c4499d905b_o.jpg

[Axel Hildebrandt]

The repost is a big improvement, the BG near the neck is still a bit brighter but it is not a major distraction.

[Ramon M. Casares]

Repost work better to me too, lovely pose, comp, detail and exppsure. Did you have the chance to get any higher? I say this as that way you woul've been able to avoid the OOF rocks in the FG. Still works wonderfully.
Congratulations!

[colincarter]

Repost work better to me too, lovely pose, comp, detail and exppsure. Did you have the chance to get any higher? I say this as that way you woul've been able to avoid the OOF rocks in the FG. Still works wonderfully.
Congratulations!

thanks Ramon, for the great comments. Unfortunately i was pretty much stuck in one position balancing on some rocks so i couldn't change my viewpoint on the Puffin and the pose only lasted for a couple of seconds. I suppose this is what we have to deal with in bird photography and what makes it so exciting.

best wishes

Colin.

[Nancy A Elwood]

Hi Colin. I am sooo jealous! I love these birds and this one is a great example of one, especially with the calling pose!! VERY big congrats!! The repost definitely helped the image.

Cheers
Nancy

[Raymond Barlow]

very well done on the repost Colin.