Cubs

[Rachel Hollander]

I thought I would start off August's Theme of Youngsters with another image of some of the bear cubs. These are two of the one year old triplets.

Canon 7D2
100-400 II @ 340 mm
1/1600
f5.6
ISO 800
HH, ff, levels, curves, TK lumo mask, sharpened in PSCC.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Joseph Przybyla]

Lovely image, Rachel. They look so cuddly at this age. Nice post processing on the bears fur, looks real and not a photograph. I go back and forth on removing the two stems of out of focus grass. Thank you for sharing.

[John Mack]

Too cute they look like teddy bears. Like the composition and the the grasses.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Joe and John, much appreciated. Joe - I don't remove any natural elements from my images.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Mike Hitchen]

What cuties - they look like they are in the dog house.
A nice range of browns, from the brightness on the head of the bear on the left to the darker colours of the cub on the right. You have also controlled the yellows well - I find that is always a potential problem in images with so much grass.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

A very pleasing image Rachel. Nice HA, light and habitat.

[Basil Dardagan]

What a treat to see something like this !! Really well exposed with all that bright green in the image

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, cubs always command the 'cute' factor and the one on the right highlights that nicely. Was it a group member who caught their attention?

Hard to tell at this size, but I might have been tempted to really up the DoF, f/11 or f/16 to pull in that second bear, but it's only an assumption. Balancing out the OOF FG grasses will help so the transition is seamless, but the blade of grass and sprouting branches above the LH bears head are very unfortunate. On this occasion adding a sliver of Contrast I think will help IMHO.

TFS
Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Mike, Sanjeev, Basil and Steve, much appreciated.

Steve - they never paid attention to the photographers. It was usually another bear whether the other cub, mom or another bear in the area that would catch their attention or sometimes an engine noise from one of the small planes or one of the atv.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Gabriela Plesea]

Dearest Rachel,

Adorable little bears - I must say, this was one very fruitful trip and you had some amazing sightings.

I like the framing and inclusion of environment here, and especially pose from those two. Good techs, well processed and I like the colours overall.

Just a thought, you might consider a little curve adjustment on the one bear (LHS of the image)? Or maybe it's a she and rather on the "blonde" side, LOL.
Really cute and I would love to grab them off the screen and play with them... Superb capture Rachel, thank you so much for sharing

Warmest regards,

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Gabriela. That cub is actually more blonde and lighter than the other.