Walk on the Tundra

[Sid Garige]

One of the biggest challenges for me was walking on the icy Arctic tundra. Terrain was combination of hard packed snow and sheer ice. I carried a pair of yaktrax and Stabilicers and used both of them on our daily hikes. Yaktrax were perfect on snow but did not give good enough traction on ice. Stabilicers worked fine on both ice and snow.

Canon 7D 100-400mm F4
F11 1/1000 ISO 400

[Austin Thomas]

I like the composition here Sid and the raised paw. I like the space showing the environment and the horizon on a third.

The whites look to have been held on the fur but you might be able to get more detail if the EXP was dropped a little in that area.

There appears to be some noise or jpeg artefacts along the top of the bear and in the bottom of half of the image generally. I wonder if you have just removed the noise from the top half of the image?

One day I will get to see these wonderful creatures, but I struggle to get away from the warmth of Africa !

tfs

Cheers

Austin

[Sid Garige]

There appears to be some noise or jpeg artefacts along the top of the bear and in the bottom of half of the image generally. I wonder if you have just removed the noise from the top half of the image?

Austin

Austin,
You are right. I wanted to retain the snow texture and did noise reduction on top part only. I guess I should do another round on bottom part while preserving the details.
thanks
sid

[Austin Thomas]

Hi Sid,

I agree that you must keep the detail and texture in the snow and ice. I think the noise reduction has worked too well and I agree that you definitely do not want to run NR on the subject. Maybe a graduated fade of NR from top to bottom would help or less NR overall. It is the artificial "line" created by the NR treatment that caught my eye.

I am sure someone will chip in with the method required to solve this simple problem.

Cheers

Austin

[Harshad Barve]

This is so beauty Sid Love the walk , pose and whites , big congrats
TFS

[Sid Garige]

Austin,

Here is another image with noise layer in gradient mask. Also fixed the spot I half cloned right next to the face.

[John Chardine]

This is a really nice, intimate look into a Polar just going about its business. I like it a lot. The face looks a little hot. Perhaps a small CCW rotation is needed.

Just to say, the term tundra refers to more or less vegetated terrestrial habitats. This animal is on pack ice, "the pack", land-fast sea ice, the "floe", and a host of other terms.

[Sid Garige]

Just to say, the term tundra refers to more or less vegetated terrestrial habitats. This animal is on pack ice, "the pack", land-fast sea ice, the "floe", and a host of other terms.
Thanks John. My first trip to Arctic and new to these terms. Bear was walking on frozen ground next to lagoon. Ocean was not frozen that time. I guess I have to read a little more on these terms.

-sid

[Ken Watkins]

Sid ,

Yet another wonderful capture, the light is perfect as is the stride of the bear.

The ice looks quite unstable to me congratulations for walking on it to get this image, a perfect example of hard work well rewarded.:cheers:

[Stephen Earle]

The repost really looks great and the exposure looks fine from my side. If anything you might remove the dark patch in the bg on the left.

[Stu Bowie]

Good repost Sid, and I like the overall wintery mood and colours in this. I like the walking posture of the polar bear too.

[Rachel Hollander]

Sid - Another stunning image, the repost seems to have dealt with the NR issue spotted by Austin. I like the light and comp of this one a lot.

Rachel

[Jason Kinsey]

The first image was good, the repost looks even better! I believe the lighting (especially on the face) is my favorite part of this image. Thanks for sharing.

[Marc Mol]

The repost Sid really presents very well, great light, exposure & comp!
TFS

[Lorant Voros]

I love the feeling of this one with the nice composition and the shades of whites. Great work.