Polar bear cub

[Nancy Bell]

This polar bear cub found our bus fascinating and thought he could sneak a look inside! We moved the bus, he tagged along. We moved again, and again and finally he gave up. I tried to get some images in focus trying to point the camera nearly straight down and NOT allowing my hands outside the narrow bus window at all. Very cute, yes; very long claws, yes! It was getting dark and my camera settings were being stretched. The original image was very blue. I tried to correct that.

Canon 1Dx, Canon 200-400 with internal 1.4 @ 290mm, 1/200, f5.6, exp. comp. +2/3, ISO 3200, bean bag on window frame

comments and critiques most appreciated.

[John Robinson]

Hi Nancy
I am certainly no wise man on these exotic animals but looks OK to me. Your photo choices were obviously restricted so you get what you take9Or take what you get )
Cheers
John

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Nancy, seems the trip was very fruitful, although with limited access you did manage to pull off a nice shot. The shooting angle isn't that server so it works, likewise the actual position and content within frame. Techs look good and you had a reasonable amount of SS creating some good detail & sharpness, good to see you pushing more the ISO. More often than not, the eyes almost disappear into a 'coal' black, with little detail, so cool to see a bit of colour in them, BTW did you get a chance to see the colour of the tongue, if so I bet you were surprised?

I appreciate PB's all vary in colour and non are pristine white, but to me, the image does have some Colour cast and some Colour Noise, both easily addressed in the HSL & within In-put sharpening, but some might be in the actual WB itself (?), albeit a bit fiddly to balance, but I do think it would be worth revisiting the RAW as you can have more control & probably easier to do so and a very cool image afterwards.

Great sighting, great experience, bring on the Bears...

Hope this helps.

TFS
Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Nancy - Looks like you did well under difficult shooting circumstances. I like the frame filling comp with good detail and sharpness. I still see the cast in the op and Steve has eliminated it but I wonder if in this case a little cast is a good thing to keep the image from looking too much like a b&w. I would do as Steve suggests and experiment a bit with WB. Keep them coming.

TFS,
Rachel

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Nancy, lovely image of the cub. I did not see one on my trip. Maybe next time.
most is said already above, but have seen you "painted" the BG noise. You missed a few parts along the face RHS.
I like the RP from Steve, but tempered to agree with Rachel with the color.

have a great eve

ciao Anette

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Nancy, a vey nice image of the cub! Good work in the field & Steve has addressed the PP issues nicely. TFS.

[Morkel Erasmus]

I like the colour coming through from the eyes, Nancy. Normally I don't like images that have an accentuated "shot from above" look (bar balloon/helicopter photos, which are shot from higher than vehicles haha), but I quite like this. I agree on the colour issues but to me the ideal colour balance is probably midway between your OP and what Steve did in his RP.

[Marc Mol]

Still a dream sighting for me Nancy.

I like the colour coming through from the eyes, Nancy. Normally I don't like images that have an accentuated "shot from above" look (bar balloon/helicopter photos, which are shot from higher than vehicles haha), but I quite like this. I agree on the colour issues but to me the ideal colour balance is probably midway between your OP and what Steve did in his RP.

You took the words right outta my mouth Morkel, totally concur.

[Nancy Bell]

Thanks everyone for your helpful advice. I'll work on getting an "in-between" look. Anette, I just used Neat Image for noise reduction on the bkgd and nothing by hand. I see what you are referring to and maybe it is just the way the stones are. Will carefully check the original.