Puffin BFF's

[Herb Houghton]

Here's a few guys from Machias Seal Island, Maine. Handheld from the blind, the lens foot resting on the window opening. 1D mark IV, 500 f4, iso 200, f9, 1/400 shot manual.

Herb

[Bill Dix]

Beautiful shot, Herb. Great comp and color, and you handled the harsh light nicely. I elected not to drag the 500 to MSI several weeks ago, but it certainly paid off for you here. Hope you'll post some more.

[Marina Scarr]

Very pleasing capture, Herb, with 2 great head angles, lovely BG and nice details. Congrats on getting out there. I am only 1 for 3 tries, and the time I did get out there was late b/c of weather and the light was harsh. :e3

[Arthur Morris]

Quite a nice COMP with the light handled well. You might wish to lighten the iris of the right hand bird (our right) to match the the bird on our left.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Love the title! Nice comp, and exposure well handled. Good point by Artie about the eye. There are darkish halos above the birds' shoulders that could/should be eliminated.

[Grady Weed]

Excellent suggestion above form Artie. I just love Puffins. Having been there several times, I live here in Maine, it is a blast each visit. Love the whites and blacks, very balanced contrast, not easy to do in the shoe box and bright light. May I ask what time of day you were there? The look facing each other is a real winner for me.

[Dumay de Boulle]

Nice double...Must be so nice to see these guys live and in person!

[Chris Kotze]

Excellent comp detail and colours, super looking birds :S3:

[Chad Caswell]

Great looking shot Herb, they both fit so nicely together (like a puzzle) if you will.. I agree with above suggestions, did you recover any whites in LR?

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Herb, what an excellent composition. well done on capturing two good HAs in opposite directions. It keeps the viewer's attention inside the frame.

I find the faces a bit oversharpened. NR on BG will also improve this one a lot.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Love this. The placement of the birds is great and the detail nice as well. Perhaps just a tweak more light in the right birds eye would be my only small suggestion.

[arash_hazeghi]

great comp and nice pose on both

[Herb Houghton]

Thanks for all of the comments everyone. I lightened up the iris of the bird on the viewer's right side, removed noise with neat image and halos with gaussian blur.

Daniel, I'm not sure of other ways to remove the halos without blur. I do know I'm not keen on losing the sharp edge around the bird when using GB.

Chad, I have LR3 but haven't used it yet because of lack of navigation skills in unknown waters. :e3 I did recover some whites via S & H in CS4, though.

Kaustubh, I used USM in CS4 with settings of 67, .2, 0

Grady, as you probably know the island visit is limited to the various tidal changes and weather permitting per the captain's call. This particular day we were in the blinds by 10 a.m.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Kaustubh, I used USM in CS4 with settings of 67, .2, 0


Herb, those USM settings should not cause oversharpening. what was sharpness setting when you converted from RAW to jpg/tiff ? with light from your top and left, and f/9, base sharpness in the image must have been very good. If you had sharpened during conversion, you might want to try backing off a bit there.