Standing Backlit Bear

[Rachel Hollander]

Another experiment from my trip to Silver Salmon Creek Lodge in Lake Clark N.P., Alaska. Taken in the morning. There was no way to get lower here as the bear was standing in a slough just off the road and was nervous due to another bear in the immediate area. This bear was eating the sedge grass but popped up every so often to keep an eye on the other bear's position. We didn't want to get between the two bears so took the opportunity to shoot some backlit images. I decided to shoot wide and include the trees that form the barrier between the sedge field and the beach. The unorthodox settings were done purposely to emphasize the backlighting when the daylight actually lasts 20+ hours. I also applied a warming filter in pp just to change things up a little. Ultimately, the other bear ran off into the woods a ways and we were able to pass.

Canon 7D2
100-400 II @ 100mm
1/5000
f9
ISO 800
HH, ff, levels, curves, warming filter, sharpened in PSCC.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Rachel a marmite one indeed ....for me.
I do like the bear it self with his rim light and the missing detail on his body .For me the crop is too loose and the shooting angle less than ideal .
Colors looking nice and do like the added warmth .
But good to see experiments ....
You have a nice variety of shots taken at SSCL ....
TFS Andreas

[John Mack]

Cool bear. Like the trees in the background. The alert pose on the bear and the rim light.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, I like the inclusion of the habitat and choice of format with the trees in the background. I feel 1/5000 is rather over the top on this and again being backlit you could have afforded going to 5.6 because the bear is in silhouette and so detail is less of an issue. The image does look dark (the bear appears choked in the main body) irrespective of being backlit, everything just seems to have the same tonal value, but having the environment lighter and richer creates more separation IMHO.

TFS
Steve

[haseeb badar]

Hi Rachel -- This works for me as presented. I loved the inclusion of the habitat and loved the standing pose as well. Might be slightly dark especially the Bear and also the techs are a bit excessive (ss and iso combo) but still works for me. Loved it . TFS !

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Andreas, John, Steve and Haseeb, much appreciated.

Steve - I'll explain. The high ss is to underexpose and create the silhouette. In Alaska in June there is 20+ hours of bright light unless it's cloudy and rainy. Here the light was actually bright but as explained in my intro we could not get on sun angle due to the presence of the other bear. I decided to go for some backlit shots (since these are becoming a favorite variation for me anyway) and purposely underexposed to emphasize the rim and backlight. I actually went darker in pp including the blacks on the bear (just my artistic choice for this one). The stopping down to f9 was that I wanted form to the entire sedge field and to the trees in the distance but also was part of controlling the light. I was thinking of this more as an animalscape. I hope this explains some of the techs.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Rachel Hollander]

Steve - For educational purposes, here's a test shot I fired off when we first got out there. 1/1600, f5.6, ISO 800. This way you can see what the conditions were under more typical technical settings, straight out of camera except for resize and color profile. As you can see, it was actually pretty bright out there.

Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Yes, having been to Alaska the 24hr can work for or against you at times, I think it was very late afternoon when I did backlit, just shot at -2EV (or more) f/4 and let the surrounds go dark to get the 'ring of fire' around the edge of the bear, this 'appears much earlier in the day though??? As you say, it's all down to personal tastes, but this wasn't with Dale, another Tour guide you were with?

[Rachel Hollander]

Steve - These were shot just before 8 a.m. No photo guide, only the bear guide from the lodge. I was there the week before the summer solstice. We are allowed to be out in the National Park from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. During those hours the surrounds were never going to go dark without some creative manual settings to achieve the -EV.

[Simon Davis]

I like it Rachel, bit different to what you might normally see.

I guess in terms of the settings you could have reduced shutter speed and ISO to keep the exposure the same but give less noise but if you are happy with the results at 800 then would it have made much difference.

Sent from my F8331 using Tapatalk

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Simon. Noise is generally not an issue if you purposely underexpose and aren't trying to bring up the exposure in pp. Similarly, a properly exposed image at ISO 800 will have very little noise even with the 7D2.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

It is a really unique image IMHO. I like how you explain your reasoning as well with the capture. Thanks.
I have reached a stage now where I look at images more from an initial impact perspective than a technical view first.
While the techs are also important, I think the overall initial impact is far more important.
If I could do something similar, I'd place the bear to the right more in this case, but that's my preference.
TFS :)