Puffin with krill

[Keith Carver]

Machias Seal Island, 7-26-10

With four photographers in a blind for three hours and all of us looking for an Atlantic Puffin with prey, finally about twenty minutes before we were called to leave, this one showed up with a mouthful of krill. With late-morning harsh light, alas.

Techs: 1DM3, 700 mm, ISO 400, f/7.1, 1/3200 sec

Post: some work with shadows/highlights to relieve shadow-lines; smart-sharpen 125/0.3 on head.

C&C appreciated.

[Arthur Morris]

Killer shrimp. The direction of the light--from the left and behind--caused a lot more problems for this image than the quality of the light: harsh.... It might be worth starting over and converting it darker. I tired to work with this one but to no avail....

[Keith Carver]

Killer shrimp. The direction of the light--from the left and behind--caused a lot more problems for this image than the quality of the light: harsh.... It might be worth starting over and converting it darker. I tired to work with this one but to no avail....

Artie, here's the same puffin a few seconds later facing into the light. I darkened the midtones a bit. Repost better?

[Arthur Morris]

Better but still very bright with a healthy smattering of flashing highlights in Photoshop as presented. Followed by lots of noise and funkiness in the shadowed blacks of the neck....

[Keith Carver]

Better but still very bright with a healthy smattering of flashing highlights in Photoshop as presented. Followed by lots of noise and funkiness in the shadowed blacks of the neck....

In this re-repost I've reduced the EXP by 1/3 stop (flashing highlights are now gone), and opened up the shadows just a little. Blacks in the neck are still a little noisy but are not blocked up. No sharpening applied. Good learning experience for me, thanks, Artie.

[Arthur Morris]

Better still but now some of the face looks too gray :) Just goes to show you the difficulties of the situation.

[Ofer Levy]

Fantastic portrait!! I see no problem with the original and much prefer it over the reposts. If anything would darken the midtones just a bit. I assume this is a serious crop but IQ is pretty decent still.

[Colin Driscoll]

I'm with Ofer here! I would have tried to brighten the eye a little but I don't know the bird so that might not be legit.

[Arthur Morris]

Fantastic portrait!! I see no problem with the original and much prefer it over the reposts. If anything would darken the midtones just a bit. I assume this is a serious crop but IQ is pretty decent still.

Ofer and Collin are in part very correct. Late last night I made a discovery. With my new laptop I need to tilt the screen about 5 degrees farther away from me than with my old laptop in order for the calibration strip at the bottom of each BPN page to look right, so everything that I have been viewing here for the past few days as looked too light.

The image in Pane 1has the most pleasing head angle but still features uneven lighting and the WHITEs right behind the bill are very bright (though they still contain details).

The lighting on the face of the bird in Pane 2 is more even but the bird's head is turned just a bit away from the viewer. This is easily seen when compared to the image in Pane 1.

Even though the whites in the image in Pane 1 are not as hot as I thought I would not---considering the harsh and uneven light, be calling it a "fantastic portrait."

Respectfully.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the composition, sharpness, BG and the krill adds to it. The first one works for me, I might fine-tune shadows and highlights just a tad and wish the eye were more evenly lit but I know that this is tricky at Machias.

[Keith Carver]

Thanks to Artie, Ofer, Colin, Axel and Peter for your very helpful comments about what to do (or not) in harsh uneven lighting conditions. I will continue to work on the ORIG post to see if I can improve it.