Nanuks of the North - Polar bears of Alaska

[Sid Garige]

Canon 7D and 18-35mm mounted on a Pole Cam
F8 1/320

PS: this is the same family of bears we photographed in 2010.
http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/81315-Wildlife-2010-Sid-Garige

[Ken Watkins]

Sid,

Marvelous image, love the gravell beach giving a different texture, the pose of the rearmost Bear (which I take to be mum) seems incredibly indifferent to your presence:cheers::cheers::cheers:

[Sid Garige]

Sid,

Marvelous image, love the gravell beach giving a different texture, the pose of the rearmost Bear (which I take to be mum) seems incredibly indifferent to your presence:cheers::cheers::cheers:

Thanks Ken. You are right about the mum. They are the most curious bears I have seen sofar.

[Jamie Douglas]

Cracking image Sid.

I see a little chromatic aberration in the bears reflections and around the bear in the BG that I might be inclined to control.

Jamie

[Rachel Hollander]

Sid - another great polar bear image. The bear in the bg adds to the image IMHO. I do wish the whole reflection of the bear on the rhs was visible but a small nit.

TFS,
Rachel

[Brendon Cremer]

Lovely image Sid so very well captured, if i had ti crit something it would be that it would have been nice to see the full reflection of the bear in the water but that just clutching at straws, this is a lovely image as is.

[Mark Wiseman]

Hi Sid,
I agree with Brendon about the reflection of the bear in the water. Another amazing image and thanks for sharing.
Mark.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Another blinder of a Polar Bear image, Sid...:cheers:
I love the intent poses of the ones approaching you. Yes, the whole reflections would have taken this up a notch, but that would be like haggling with the professor about lifting your grade from 99.3% to 99.5% :w3

[Steve Canuel]

Looks like somebody wants to take a boat ride :S3:.

[dankearl]

Very nice IQ, a landscape lens?
The bear in the distance adds a lot, just superb.

[Steve Kaluski]

Personally, I think this is the best to date Sid, due to the content. The inquistiveness of the cubs plays a huge part in the scene for me, however as mentioned early, would like to have had the whole reflection in, which in turn, would have elevated the image big time.

I can see what Jamie is referring to, the magenta on the legs of the distant bear, but not sure if it is chromatic aberration, as that tends to appear on edging, WDYT Sid?

TFS
Steve

[Roman Kurywczak]

Pretty wild Sid! Love the angle!!!

[Sid Garige]

Jamie,
I enabled lens correction during raw conversion and tried to control chromatic aberration but did not help much. I added noise reduction to water in separate layer and merged it at 30%. Let me know if it works.

Rachel,Brendon, Mark & Steve,
Good point about full reflection. I reduced the sky a bit and cropped it with more space at the bottom for full reflection. Like the new crop. Thanks

Dan,
Yes, landscape lens.

Thanks Steve and Roman.

[Rachel Hollander]

Sid - the repost takes it up to another level - incredible! I think this is my new favorite of yours.

Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Sid, I am now torn when I compare the two, as I can see why you cropped as you did, however. When you compare the two, the RP looks a little washed out, it doesn't carry the same amount of depth the OP has. In the OP the sky has more detail, likewise the shingle, reflection etc, does it need more mid tone, tweak in Curves in both Blacks and the Whites? did you rework the whole image again?

If you can get it back to that, the OP, then for me, it would be one 'Stella' image. :w3

[peter delaney]

Not one , not two , but three polar bears ... Now you just showing off :bg3:

[Jamie Douglas]

[QUOTE=Sid Garige;791657]Jamie,
I enabled lens correction during raw conversion and tried to control chromatic aberration but did not help much. I added noise reduction to water in separate layer and merged it at 30%. Let me know if it works.

QUOTE]

Hi Sid, huge improvement regarding the CA in the left hand side foreground bear and the bear lurking in the background.

The repost is far closer to where this image should be considering how good it is but I do have to agree with Steve that the depth could be improved on the sky and shoreline. The water looks much better as well. The CA noise has disappeared.

I do hope you have many more polar bear images to share as they just get better and better.

Jamie

[Don Lacy]

Wonderful image Sid I love the snow on the snouts of the bears. After looking at both images for a while now I think the crops on both images work and have a slightly different character to them.