Black Bear + repost

Nice catch! Glad you didn't get "eaten by the bears" while hiking. I like the composition and how the bear is looking somewhat toward your direction. Hope things are better for you in Tenn. then in Florida.
I'll be going to the GSMNP next week. Can't wait.

Welcome back Rick,
There is certainly an affirmation of mortality when sleeping on the ground in large predator country.
On my monitor it looks as though the face could use a little more sharpening. The texture in the oofbg reminds me of a sensor problem with some of my images that was pointed out through NPN last fall when I first joined (Thanks Marcel!). Could it be that it just rained and the air is cool here?
Cool shot!
Good luck in Tenn.
Neil

Good "bear jam" bear! I like the pose and the rich greens. I don't understand the waviness in the oof background, but would suggest if you globally sharpened instead of selective, that might exaggerate the effect. Hmmm. I don't think it is a significant issue and one could also apply a blur. One thing I keep seeing the bright glare of the eyes. Usually it is difficult to see a good reflection in bear eyes and here they seem to jump out. I would experiment by selecting only the eyeballs, lowering the brightness & raising the contrast and I think they will appear more natural.

Yes, it is good to see you back!

Thanks for the comments guys.
Its funny how I can't seem to get away from the catchlight comments (even after all this time not having posted on here). It just haunts me. The bear was making its way into an open top area. I purposely wait for catchlight when I photograph animals. I do not add them afterward. I can tone them down though.

As far as the waviness goes... I have no Idea what that is, but it does bother me. The sharpening was TK's Less Halos method and was done globally only for web compression.
My camera and everything else got drenched a couple days prior to this. Do you think maybe that had something to do with it?
I noticed this problem with some images right after I got the Sigma lens a few years ago, but it semmed to go away after a few shoots.

Here's a repost.

I don't mean to sound all defensive, I post here to learn. I just can't figure out what the hell is going on with the catchlights. The catchlights are pretty much the thing that attracted me to this image over all the others that I shot of this individual bear.

Thanks!

Hey Rick,
I like the repost much better. What did you do to get the background back? The Bear also is crisper and the catch light works better IMO.
As to the background issue, I believe it's a condensation problem that arises from prolonged exposure to moist conditions. I think that at or near the point of condensation, similar to the bathroom mirror after a hot shower, all the swirls that aren't visible when it's dry, show up. When the sensor dries it disappears. I was using a 20D at the time it happened to me and, even though I took every precaution to keep everything dry, my world was very moist for several days.
Just my take on it.
Neil

Rick, to me the eyes in the repost are a definite improvement and appear very natural. I, too, think catchlights are very important with wildlife, but in the original post they seemed to take over the entire eye in a way that drew attention. Whatever you did to the background worked, as well. Looks great.

I will be watching to see other opinions. Maybe the eyes and background artifacts are related?

Thanks guys.
I never thought about it like that, Lon. Maybe the two issues are related.
Neil, If it is a condensation issue that caused these problems, then I guess that explains it. A couple days prior to this shot, I was hiking along the Gabes Mountain Trail and I got rained on for hours... I even got hailed on a little bit. Although my camera bag is water resistant, I guess it got drenched beyond it's limit.

I added a 30% or so gaussian blur to a new layer over the entire image and gradually masked the effect from the middle ground in. Then I went over the bear at 100%.
For the eyes, I simply just burned the bright spots at about 30%.

Hey Rick, good to see you back! I hope you move will change your life for the better! Interesting discussion in this thread. It is clear that the second post is an improvement. These black bears must be a photographers nightmare to expose without blocking the shadows! You seem to have done very well in that respect.

Nice catch! Looking at your photo I was wondering if you were close enough to use your lense at the 100mm setting or the 300mm setting and then do some cropping to bring the bear in closer..LOL, I have yet to see a bear in the wild here in Virginia! But hopefully one day I will. When it does happen, I hope I can hold the camera steady to get a clean photo like yours. WELL DONE!!

Hi Rick,

I'm jumping in on this one late, so won't repeat what others have already said. I will agree with Lon that in the original post the eyes just seemed (to me) too dominated by white (especially when one views the larger version of the image). I think everyone likes a good catchlight but, like with anything, too much of a good thing isn't always good! I think your re-post is dramatically better - good job on the adjustments.

Nice to see you back - your posts are always enjoyable to view!

Cheers...

Brad

David, I know you were just messing around, but for the sake of satisfying curiosity, I looked up the original data. I shot this at 223mm and I cropped about 10% mostly to remove the bottoms of some trees in the upper BG.

Thanks again for the helpful critiques everyone!

I like the bear's stance, and also the comp. Nice one, Rick.