Portrait of a juvenile polar bear on Arctic sea ice, 80 54 19.4N, 13 05 59.0E, soft early April light.
Cropped square from a vertical.
Canon 7DII and 400/f2.8+1.4xIII
1/1600, f4.5, ISO2000, processed in Lightroom.
Greg
Hi Greg you did well with tai shot taken from the boat , i do also like the head angle and the crop .Color of the fur is nice , i would just open up the blacks and reduce the blues in the fur and blacks .
Hi Greg - Andreas beat me to it. You did well from the boat but I would reduce the blues in the blacks of the face and open up the blacks a little. The snow on the head adds nicely. I don't know what the ff looks like but is it possible to have only body in the frame, eliminating the ice in the upper corners? The square crop works for this image but I think it would take it up a notch to have all polar bear.
Thanks all for the comments, attached is repost with a different crop and a slight color modification. I had not gone this tight initially to keep the ears away from the edge of the frame, but I think you all get I was trying to frame with the body. If I go any lower I get ice between the legs.
See if this is better.
Greg
Really great image, Greg. The dark eyes and nose really stand out wonderfully against the light tones of the fur. I like the colour on the repost better which I think has nailed it but I'd be happy with either composition. Detail looks great in the areas that matter including the dark eyes and nose - so a matter of choice whether you lighten those. For me, the dark tones work as presented but the others are much more experienced.
I apologise profusely for coming in so late. Trying to catch up with the latest images here on BPN but my Internet is super slow - Africa style, LOL
Wonderful sighting and super special to get close to this polar bear, I thank you so much for sharing. Nice techs and well exposed. RP much better IMO. I won't go into issues mentioned above, just thought I'd share with you a very humble RP where I tried to extract more detail from the eye and nose. I think IQ is great and you may crop tighter if you wish to achieve a different look and feel to this frame.
Forgot to mention, I really like the POV and HA. And I hope next year you decide to become a permanent member, love your images, looking forward to more
Thanks Gabriela for your comments on this, and in general on the critique you have provided for the few images I have posted.
The final product is personal, but for me I think in this case your repost has gone too far in the dark tones. Again personal, but I prefer to peer into the dark areas to see the detail rather than it being brought out so much. That said, if I did it in the RAW file rather than the JPEG you could process it may be a little different.
But I also remember a couple of things from the trip, one what one of my guides said about the PB, that once the prey sees the black triangle of the eyes and nose it is too late... In this the PB is more in profile than face on but I still have the menacing triangle, and it does not need so much of the detail in the triangle elements. The other was that you can't see into the eyes of the PB, so bringing out the details of the iris also goes against my mental image of this predator.
So I am trying to present my interpretation of an interaction. If I need the extra words I may not be successful, but I'm not necessarily trying to produce someone else's image, if that makes sense?
Regards,
Greg
Thank you Greg, I now understand your intention behind the image. Indeed I might have gone too far, but bear in mind I have never seen a Polar bear in real life
BTW I read with much interest what you said about the "menacing triangle" - awesome species, would love to see and photograph a Polar Bear some day.