Banff Black Bear

[Rachel Hollander]

Taken near Lake Louise on my trip this past weekend to the Canadian Rockies. The bear was working the berries in a gulley next to the road so we were able to stay roadside near our vehicle.

Canon 7D
100-400 @ 400mm
1/1250
f5.6
ISO 800
HH, slight crop for composition, s/h and contrast boost in CS5.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Grant Atkinson]

Rachel nice work here with the ears and eyes in good position. Dont think there was too much else you could do with this one...it is a fine looking specimen. PP work looks pretty good on the computer I am viewing on. TFS
Grant

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Looks like this bear is radio collared. I think sacrificing some shutter speed for a narrow aperture would have been even better. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[gail bisson]

Very nice. Good exposure and comp.Great job with the 7D and ISO 800 with the blacks. How I wish the green tag with the number 9 wasn't there. I would be tempted to clone it out,
Gail

[Steve Canuel]

Like the line of the bushes from UL to LR and the bear's position and angle toward the viewer. You got a nice view of the face. Now you'd think with all our technology we could come up with a little smaller device to put on these guys for tracking.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Grant, Sabyasachi, Gail and Steve for the comments, much appreciated. Gail - I thought about cloning out the ear tag but then there's still the collar and I'm not sure my PP skills are good enough to get rid of them. Suggestions on how to do it would be welcome. We were told that the authorities are trying to tag and collar all the bears in the area to keep better records, too bad from a photography perspective.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Stan Cunningham]

Rachel,
I love it but I studied bears for 12 years and put those radio collars and ear tags on them so it brings back great memories.
If it were mine, I might clone out the 2 grass seed heads before her face but little else.
It's tough to see a pic of a "study bear" but it's tack sharp and a nice story.
Good job.
Steve, the reason for the large collar is the need for battery size. The larger the battery the longer the collar lasts. And from my experience we photographers are the only ones that don't like the tags, most people think it's cool to see a study animal.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Stan. I hope they'll develop a chip technology to be able to locate the bears rather than the large radio collars.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, know it well, but primarily in the winter time.

Very pleased you got this sighting and looks like your processing is moving on. :w3 Agree with Grant, there isn't too much more you can do, perhaps a slightly tighter crop, still keeping the bear towards the top LHC, but working on RoT's.

TFS
Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Steve.

[Jamie Douglas]

A well fed bear and I like the inclusion of the habitat but might have gone a little tighter. A nice souvenier from your trip.

I am heading up to Jasper and Banff in 2 weeks for a fortnight.

TFS Rachel

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Jamie - Mine was a short trip, 3 nights at Moraine Lake Lodge and then a night in Banff. Lots of landscape opportunities but for the wildlife it involves a lot of luck.

Rachel

[Morkel Erasmus]

Late to the party here Rachel, nice sighting and some good crits pointed out above.

We are going to see a continuing increase in collaring of mammals as humans keep encroaching on areas formerly freely inhabited by wildlife and the positive growth in numbers of many species are dwindling due to forced separation and inbreeding.
:bugeyed:

Here is a repost incorporating Steve Kaluski's crop suggestion. I cropped from LHS to remove the distracting foliage there and from bottom to remove negative space. I wish the bright blade of grass covering the RHS (our LHS) of the animal's face was not there but I know how it goes in the wild :Whoa!:.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks for the repost Morkel. It looks good.