This is a classic moment where things could have all come together to make a good shot, but my depth of field was just too shallow. This image needed a slightly greater depth of field (only a smidgin`) just to get the eyes sharp as well as the bill. I was, believe it or not, aiming for that head-on shot, got bang on with the bill and gape, but blew the shot with the eyes not being perfectly sharp.
It`s not so obvious at this size, but not good when seen at a larger resolution.
I always work manually on exposure, and I was probably trying not to blow the whites, for example the facial whites can become almost soft grey at an angle. Therefore I try and control my ISO, but on this occasion I ended up selecting a slightly narrower aperture than I should have used, so very tricky to balance off exposure.
Very often on a Puffin you also get unequal brightness of the whites on the bird, so again in this case I got it right for the `face portrait`, but the whites on the front of the bird (a nightmare in summer sun) where `blown`, so this shot - along with some others - got put to one side!
It happens to us all at some time or another. The shot could have been a good one, but ended up being allocated to the shots that might have been binned.