Photographing Puffins

There are several places around the country where you can photograph puffins at this time of year including Skomer, Bass Rock, Isle of May, Bempton Cliffs and the Farne Islands off the Northumberland coast.

Getting to the Farnes (weather/winds permitting) is easy and there are plenty of boat excursions running from Seahouses and this time of year is good for pictures because it is the breeding season so you stand a chance of getting the classic shots of puffins clutching sand eels in their beaks. However, it is worth having a plan B for your photography because the weather/wind factor can't be predicted – it can be lovely on shore but if the wind or tide is making it tricky or unsafe to land, then the trips do not run – or may only go to Inner Farne, rather than Staple Island, which is the outermost of the Farnes.


Staple Island is the better location for puffins. The islands are National Trust owned so there is a landing fee payable for each island – on top of of the cost of the boat trip. From May to July, this is currently £6 for non-NT members.

Get out to Staple Island and you are in for a seabird treat. In addition to puffins, you will find guillemots, razorbills and kittiwakes – and you do not have to go far to photograph them either. If you have opted for an all-day boat tour you will have a couple of hours on Staple Island in the morning and then two hours in the afternoon on Inner Farne. Two hours sounds a long time, but it will go quickly, so don't linger around too much. More on Inner Farne tomorrow.

By the way, there are no refreshment facilities on the islands so take a packed lunch to keep you going. There are no toilet facilities on Staple.



Gear
Take a long telephoto (300mm at least) for reasonably frame-filling shots of the birds and a monopod or tripod. Speaking personally, I take my Manfrotto 055CXPRO3 carbon-fibre pod which is reasonably lightweight yet stout enough to support by Nikon 200-400mm zoom. A teleconverter is worth its space in the camera bag too. A tripod with a gimbal head or a long lens support such as the Manfrotto 393 Heavy Tele Lens Support is ideal for your long lens because it makes tracking flying birds much easier. The 393 is ideal for supporting spotting scopes as well as long lenses and costs £119.

The Manfrotto 393 Heavy Lens Support costs £119 and makes following action like flying puffins really easy. It suits camera as well as spotting scope use. Click here for details.

Technique
Exposure can be challenge especially in sunshine because of the extreme contrast (bright sun, black & white birds equals serious contrast headache) so use your usual metering mode and check your exposures and histograms carefully to make sure you are not suffering from blown highlights. The other option is to take control and meter manually, taking a reading from a mid-tone (grass works well) and use those settings – manual metering is advised for in-flight shots where the change in background can upset the meter and cause under or overexposure of the bird. It also pays to shoot Raw format too so you can tinker with shadows and highlights during development.

Pay attention to your ISO and set a high enough sensitivity to allow blur-free shutter speeds.

Single-shot AF is fine for birds on land, but switch to continuous or servo AF for flying birds and track them in the viewfinder keeping the bird centre in the frame. The knack of capturing puffins in flight is finding the best spot. It pays to study birds coming in to land and you see that there is a predictable pattern so position yourself in the best spot for side-on or front-on shots. Areas of the island are roped off so you can be limited in options. Take care when setting up the tripod – you should not have legs over the boundary rope, nor do you want to trip up any fellow visitors. There is a boardwalk on Staple Island and if you are set up on that, the vibration of people walking past can be a problem so watch out for that too.

There is not a great deal on Staple Island but keeping backgrounds free of distractions is as important here as anywhere. Birds, fellow visitors, light-toned rocks are all potential background distractions so keep your eyes open for them on your shoot.

Find the tripod to suit your needs at www.manfrotto.co.uk.

Don't forget to enter our exclusive competition where you can win one of six Manfrotto 190XPROB tripods!


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