I had forgotten how many Puffin images I still had in my files. I guess I need to do some more weeding. For this Challenge I decided to go with something a bit different. Getting this was a bit dicey, hanging out over the cliff at Latrabjarg to get a look at the Puffin at his burrow. From 2016. Removed some whitewash.
D7200, 80-400VR @ 165mm, ISO 2000, 1/320s @ f/9. (not sure why I used these settings)
Hi Bill,
I love the feather in the mouth and the daisies in the LUC.
I think you have framed the puffin very well.
It looks like it was a typical dark day in Iceland. You have good detail in most of the blacks but I think you could get a bit more out of the blacks near the beak.
Maybe increase the exposure overall by 1/4 stop and working a bit on the blacks with detail extractor?
Very nice frame showing puffin behavior to a "T",
Gail
Def. a different point of view for the puffin. Glad you survived the event!
I like Gail's idea about the blacks. I took a slightly different tack, but hopefully I am sailing in the right direction.
Luminosity mask on dark tones, combined that with screen mode to brighten things in the darks a bit, and then mild increase in the contrast of the dark tones and a bit into the mid tones.
I thought it looked a bit less murky, added some detail in the darker areas, like the head and the nest cavity.
There are a dozen ways plus to tweak this, but this combo was quick and hopefully effective. It would be easy to go a bit brighter still, but didn't want to make it look like a bright sunny day.
Thank you both for the suggestions. Randy, I do like what your intervention has done with the head and nest cavity. I'll experiment with some of those suggestions. Some time back, I bought a new laptop and in the process I lost my Detail Extractor. I might try to get the new version.
Atlantic Puffin: Feathering His Nest
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