Brown bear family

[Stan Cunningham]

A sow and her 2 yearling cubs. Spent 2.5 weeks at Silver Salmon Creek Lodge in Lake Clark Natl Park in AK writing some educational materials for the lodge.
Was able to get out every morning and evening and take pics. I have more to edit than I even want to think about.
Looking for some good criticism as I want to start a website soon with pics posted to advertise "eco" and "photo for beginners" trips.
I realize I'm not near as accomplished as many of you and have thick skin so fire away.
Canon 5D Mark II, 500 F4
F 8, 1/1000 sec ISO 500
A little cropping and some high grass removal with clone tool for post processing.
Stan

[peter delaney]

Hi Stan


lovely scene , just felt it was a little flat.....

[Robert Amoruso]

As someone that has photographed this animal in Alaska and at SSCL, I find the biggest problem is deep shadows under the bears. Peter's tweak, though increasing contrast deepened the shadows too much for my tastes.

Stan, my recommends are:

1) Focus seems to have been in front of the bears - grass in front of them looks sharper.
2) Crop from the top to the middle of the BG trees will accentuate the bears better. As it is now they feel to diminutive in the frame.
3) Always hard to get three bears looking at you but I find the gaze of the left cub throws off the image when contrasted to the gaze of the adult and right cub more towards you.

As far as exposure goes, I have taught my workshops participants to photograph the bears by pushing highlights up to and just past the point of clipping. This can be post-processed down later and gives much more shadow detail that can be brought up with less noise.

[Steve Canuel]

LIke the comp of this one. The position and poses of the bears down in the LRC allow for a nice unobstructed view of the habitat behind them.

[Jess Lee]

Stan,
Good to see some of your work. It was good meeting you at SSC. It addition to the others comment my biggest concern is as Robert mentioned that the sow seems a little soft and the grass in front of her is sharp. At this size it is hard to tell about the cubs but my guess is that you focused on one of them. It is very difficult to get a sow and her cubs all on focus since they are rarely on the same plane.
Hope to see you this winter

[Stan Cunningham]

First, thanks to all of you on some good comments.
The comments on the partial oof were disappointing to see but accurate and I appreciate it. I love the comp too but it's not as sharp as I'd like.
Peter, I'd like to know what steps you go through to "add some pop" if it's not too hard to let me know.
Robert, I actually visited your site before I left on the trip and incorporated many of your suggestions. However, other than using a recovery slider I really don't know how to "save" clipped highlights so I avoided that one. The natural shadow of the bear around the eye is very frustrating.
Jess, just give me a call a month or so before you head down and I'll make time in my teaching schedule to meet with you a day or 2.
I'll be posting many more bears, I really think my cub photos were the best but I tend to post photos I like but suspect they have some flaws and want feedback. I love compliments like any one else but I learn from kind but objective comments and appreciate all of yours.
Stan

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Stan, an image with sow & cubs is always good to see, and I think this does have a nice feel to it. Robert has raised some good points and certainly I have found shadows are difficult to control at the best of times. I agree with Steve C, the position of the bears is good with a nice environment/habitat setting. Perhaps it might be worth revisiting the RAW file to see if you can retrieve some more detail etc out from the file. It also looks like some cloning on the LHC, looks to be some duplication of grass? Not saying this is right, but it may give a direction, coupled with the other suggestions?

Look forward to seeing more.

TFS
Steve

[Morkel Erasmus]

Welcome here Stan. Some very good points raised above. As someone who hasn't had the privilege of photographing bears in the wild before I always enjoy seeing them on the forum.

To my eyes, Steve's repost has the most 'clarity' and it invites me into the scene very nicely.

[Stan Cunningham]

Thanks again guys. Steve, as a photoshop "learner at best" what steps would you take to extract some more details? Perhaps you can point me too a url or former post and I do like your repost better but not sure what you did.
I will try Robert's suggestion on the crop and some more sharpening. I don't know of any way to increase light around the eyes at this time, seems to be a factor on almost all bear photos I've see unless the sun is shining right on their face.
Stan