Puffin

[nick clayton]

Farne Islands, Northumberland, UK. 30/06/14

Canon 7D
Canon EF 300mm f2.8 II USM Lens
Canon 2x III Extender

1/800 @ f7.1
+1/3 EV
Aperture priority
ISO 400
Pattern

RAW converted in Canon DPP

Levels
Curves
Saturation
Selective Color
Nik Software - Dfine 2.0 noise reduction - background only. Color Efex Pro 4 - Tonal Contrast & Detail Extractor on subject
Photoshop USM

[keith mitchell]

Nick you have got some superb detail abd your exposure looks spot on.

Cheers Keith.

[Binu John]

Excellent portrait with a lot of feather details! Perfect exposure! Well done!

[Doug Brown]

A well executed portrait with great techs and sharp focus.

[Paul Kusmin]

That's a beauty all right.
Love the detail and light, BG is sweet as well, nice.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Nick - Really nice portrait with excellent exp, detail, dof and bg. Well done!

TFS,
Rachel

[Karl Egressy]

Very nice Puffin portrait. Great details in both black and white. Nice head turn.

[William Dickson]

Nice one Nick. Well done

[Daniel Cadieux]

Looks great, perfect head angle, and the square crop works well here.

[gail bisson]

A beautiful portrait.
The IQ and DOF are perfect.
Your choice of composition is perfect as is the HA.
Love it,
Gail

[nick clayton]

Thanks for the comments, it’s very much appreciated.

The problem with the Farnes is you are not able to land first thing in the morning or last thing in the day when the light is at its best; therefore you have to rely on a bit of cloud cover to reduce to harsh light. Unfortunately all the time I was there the previous day and when I first landed this day the light was harsh, later in the day though some thin cloud blocked the sun giving better light, I quickly made my way to this location where I knew the Puffins were in a nice position and made this image.

The image has about 20 % off the top and 45 % on the left cropped. I was quite pleased with how the 300mm II with the 2x III extender held the detail.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Very nice image of a cool bird.
Love the nice details and contrast. I wish to see this one in 2:3 ratio as I find too much room in front of the bird.

[Richard Flack]

Sweet shot Nick. These puffins are awesome subjects! TFS

[nick clayton]

Thanks Juan and Richard

[Mike Milicia]

Congrats on gorgeous portrait!

Agree with trimming a bit from the left.