Black Bear

[John Mack]

This image was made in the Great Smoky Mountains national park at 11:43 AM on 11/16/17. While visiting some relatives we made a day trip to the smokies and saw this bear on the side of the road under a black walnut tree eating some walnuts. The light is not ideal here at all. Really wished it was overcast that day but it was a clear sky day without a cloud in sight. Still neat to have seen this bear. Image adjustments in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Hand held, Full frame.

Canon 5D MarkIII
Sigma 150-600 Contemporary
600mm
f6.3
ISO 2000
1/640sec

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi John - It's definitely tough to shoot in such harsh light, especially when the subject is largely in shadow. Any chance you would share the raw through Dropbox or something similar? Some of the blacks are choked and some hls hot. There's also a weird patch on the rear leg behind the grass. I would also probably back off on the saturation, particularly of the yellows, if it were mine.

TFS,
Rachel

[Jonathan Ashton]

I suspect not an easy image to process. It looks too heavy to me, ie the colours are too saturated and I think the contrast is too high. I think there is quite a lot more detail to be obtained.

[Steve Kaluski]

Would agree on the above John, there is more detail within the Bear even at this size, but then you may find that the sharpening is too much. Bright light wasn't on your side and harder to Expose. Not sure what it is over the rear leg (OOF grass??) but it's very unfortunate, any frames further on?

John not sure what you do within your PP workflow re Blacks, Contrast & Saturation, but it is a constant issue that arises and I think/feel you need to look at these areas and so your image will be better for this.

TFS
Steve

[John Mack]

Hey Rachel, I will send you the raw. That's a out of focus blade of grass in front of the rear leg.

[Mike Poole]

Great sighting to have, but the as others have stated, the light was against you here. I'm interested to see what Rachel has to say after looking at the RAW

Mike

[John Mack]

Not sure what it is over the rear leg (OOF grass??) but it's very unfortunate, any frames further on?

Hey Steve, That is some out of focus grass. All the other frames i have the bear is laying down.

[Rachel Hollander]

John was kind enough to send me the RAW file and there is a lot more detail that can be extracted from it. Here's my version done relatively quickly with most adjustments in ACR including a brush to reduce the exposure of the bg and rear of the bear by -.50, and some color adjustments/saturation reductions and then some quick curves adjustment layers and sharpening in PSCC.

Rachel

[Glenn Pure]

Excellent sighting John so good work going out to get the opportunity. I see you have cloned out the oof grass in front of the nose in your OP - visible in Rachel's repost. I agree with the comments about the OP being too saturated and the blacks choked. Rachel has really improved this with her repost.

[Loi Nguyen]

Rachel did a great job bringing out the details in the dark fur and reducing the saturation. Only thing I'd suggest is to sharpen the eye more. The OOF grass on the rear leg is quite unfortunate. Loi