DREW’S TOP 10 TIPS FOR GREAT PUFFIN PHOTOS

1 Watch the wildlife

Before reaching for your camera, spend a few minutes just observing the wildlife, watching its behaviour and learning its patterns, as this will make it easier to know where to point your camera.

2 Stock up on supplies

There’s no shop on islands like Skomer, so take food and drinks. There’s little in the way of shade either, so a hat, suncream and plenty of water is advised.

3 Be respectful of nature

There are no bins on the island, so be sure to take any rubbish with you rather than litter the island.

4 Wear appropriate clothing

Getting the best shots sometimes means getting down and dirty for the best angle, so put on hardwearing clothes that you don’t mind getting messy.

5 Stay over

It’s worth staying over on the island if you’re able to as you can shoot whenever you like, including at sunrise or sunset for magical golden hour lighting.

6 Bring spares

As you’re not on the mainland, there’s also no power on the island, so bring plenty of memory cards and fully charged camera batteries to last the duration of your stay. Shooting with mirrorless and burst modes can eat up battery power quickly.

7 Shoot Raw

Set your image quality to Raw so you capture as much exposure information as possible. If white areas, such as the sky or a puffin’s face, are clipped and overexposed, you have a better chance at rescuing slightly blown-out details in the edit.

8 Use a lens hood

Lens hoods are ideal when shooting in harsh midday sun in the summer, as stray angles of light can cause image-softening flare to appear in your shots. A lens hood helps create sharper shots.

9 Image stabilization

As the paths on Skomer are quite narrow, Drew doesn’t take a tripod and instead shoots handheld. To tame camera shake, he switches Image Stabilization on with the lenses he uses and sets it to Mode 1, which corrects for shake in all directions.

10 Stay on the path

Make sure you don’t deviate from the designated footpaths around Skomer Island because the puffins make their burrows in all sorts of places on the land and they’re very fragile, so you don’t want to accidentally step on one.