Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't been posting recently! Been pretty busy around here the past couple months.
My mom and I were on a drive in Waterton Lakes National Park when we spotted this black bear. He is pretty young (I'd say 2 or 3) and at first my mom and I thought his mom must be pretty close by. She never made an appearance, though, so I guess he's on his first year alone. He was foraging along the road and had paused to look at something that caught his attention. I quickly snapped off a few images before he returned to eating.
Unfortunately, the road we take to get up where this guy lives was completely washed out due to the massive Alberta flood this year, so I haven't gotten to photograph him recently. Hopefully they can get it open soon, but it seriously doesn't look like it will be open any time in the near future. The flood actually completely removed several parts of the road, so it's gonna be a long repair...
Thanks for lookin'!
Nikon D600
Nikkor 200-400mm f/4 ED VR @ 220mm
ISO 800
1/250sec @ f/4.5
On beanbag from truck window
Full-frame
Converted from RAW with Phase One Capture One Pro 7
Nik Viveza and Color Efex Pro 2 in PS5
Comments
6 commentsExcellent image here - nice pose from the bear and a good look at his eyes - tough to do, as bears are often looking down.
Nice detail and DOF to blur the BG a bit.
My only nit is those 2 grasses around his chin - a little distracting . You might experiment with "trimming" them a bit.
A really nice image!
Sandy
Excellent black bear photo with excellent exposure on the black fur, while controlling the nice oof background highlights beautifully. The vegetation frames the bear very well imho. Might be just a little tight at the bottom, but not a deal breaker, and I can see why you would want to have him as large in the frame as possible to show expression.
Good to see you posting again. I think I might even consider cropping a bit closer on this one?
I see a D600 in the bag, congrats on the new toy...
Sandy, I have a hard time taking out what was natural in the picture. I like to keep the scene as it was, and that's why I didn't "trim" the grass around his nose at all. I do see where you're coming from though.
Gary and John, I agree with you about the tightness around the bottom and top. This is full frame, so unfortunately, I can't do anything about it. I wish I had noticed his paws cut off when I captured the image, but I was focusing on his expression.
Morkel, I experimented cropping closer but I liked the overall "feel" of the image like this. Actually, the D600 is my dads camera, I was just using it on this trip. I got a D7100 on the 29th for my 16th birthday, so I'll be posting pics I took with that camera really soon!
Thank you again everyone! I appreciate everyone's honesty with my images.
Jumping into this one a bit late, but want to congratulate you on both this image and taking the high ground on resisting the urge to sanitize your image (by leaving the grasses in). They didn't distract me at all.
I will echo the comments of the others (and you) re: the tightness on the top and (especially) the bottom. With so many pixels in the original (with that 24 MP camera) I think I'd re-visit a much tighter crop on the bear's head - in this case I think cutting out more of the bear would look intentional (and likely produce a more dramatic image) than having those paws clipped (which would look to many as a "mistake"). I know it's always easy to second guess images after the fact, but feeling to me like this image would have really lent itself to a vertical capture...(tho' I have no clue what you had to work with - or were fighting against - in the foreground).
Cheers...
Brad