Puff, puff, Puffin

[Paul_G]

Well another year and another trip to Skomer. Weather was no where near as good as last year (well it would have been difficult to match) with the tent nearly getting blown away Saturday evening. Needless to say the Island and bird snapping was just as much fun. Had a new toy to play with, providing an extra 200mm of reach (400mm f5.6L) which provided an opportunity for some different shots.

Anyway here are a few shots from the trip, still have quite a few to edit.

400mm:

70-200mm:

Cheers

Paul

 

[unofficialPete]

Excellent shots!

I'm planning a trip to Skomer at the moment with some coasteering over at St Davids, I think the puffins will be gone by mid August though?

Mind if I ask where you camped?

 

[Marky_]

Puffins are such photogenic birds.

 

[Paul_G]

Cheers Pete. We camped at East Hook Farm, which is literally right at the end of the coastline and a 10 minute walk from Martin's Haven so perfect for beating the morning rush to Skomer. The campsite is a little exposed to the elements so if it's wet and windy you may be hiding in your tent!

Marky - they are very photogenic, great little characters.

 

[Andy.]

Lovely shots. You also had that awesome shot of one last year didn't you?

How are you finding the 400mm?

 

[rogueneo]

the seal looks lovely wish i could take pics that well.

 

[Vish]

Amazing!

 

[Paul_G]

Lovely shots. You also had that awesome shot of one last year didn't you?

How are you finding the 400mm?

Cheers Andy - yeah unfortunately didn't manage to get lucky with any Puffins with mouthfuls of sand eels this year. The 400mm is a really nice lens, a little bit of a learning curve especially after being very much used 200mm as a maximum focal length for the last year and a half. Minor movement is exagerated with this length of lens so with no IS and not being the fastest lens about (f5.6) technique needs to be quite good and shutter speeds need to be reasonably high, although one great plus point is the lens is light and proved no problem to lug around all day long. The weather was quite mixed which meant I was using anything from ISO 200 up to ISO 800, sharpness and keepers was consistently better with a minimum shutter speed of 1/500th...anything below and this dropped off.

There were quite a few people with stupidly big lenses.....with what resembled 'jet pack' rucksacks to carry them around!

the seal looks lovely wish i could take pics that well.

Cheers

Amazing!

Thanks

 

[Ali]

Awesome paul...

...Are you paul that used to be in glasgow??! :S Red 197?

 

[Will.]

Wow those shots are amazing mate. I really want to get into photography. Just dont have the cash to buy a camera at the moment

BTW we could do with your photography skills at some of our meets

 

[Paul_G]

Awesome paul...

...Are you paul that used to be in glasgow??! :S Red 197?

Thanks. No, I had a Silver 182 FF with Cup suspension for a couple of years when I lived in Guildford.

Wow those shots are amazing mate. I really want to get into photography. Just dont have the cash to buy a camera at the moment

BTW we could do with your photography skills at some of our meets

An impending move to Germany may make it a little far to come to meets...!