Fun with Grizzlies (or maybe not)

[Brownbear]

Hard to photograph and to edit!

To photograph because the lighting is different all over the bear, so the exposure is challenging and the fur looks matted and messy.

To edit, I did not do much with the exposure (because of noise). I healed a bunch of distracting white spots in the background, and cloned out a couple of branches, and blurred the background a bit. I de-noised and used an unsharp mask. But if you look at the fur in the lower right portion it looks green?












My focus right now is on learning how to edit but in the case of this bear I would like to try again, so all tips are appreciated. Something about the varying exposure and the fur of the bear is not right...

Thank you.

[Donald]

I think the 'problem' with the first two is that there is very little tonal variation across the image. As a result, we don't get much definition on the bear itself and it also disappears into the background.

On the other hand the third one is a beauty. There is good tonal variation, including on the fur on the neck where highlighted wisps of fur give it the texture it needs

[Shadowman]

Very nice effort.

[Suzan J]

Hi Christina: I also prefer the third shot for the better lighting and composition. From what I have been reading on these forums, it is difficult to photograph "wet fur" as it loses texture, but your third shot seems to have captured enough of it. I would be really surprised to find a well groomed bear out there in the wild, so if he looks a little matted and messy to you, well, so be it. It is more than enough to be that close to him and get a shot at all. I gotta ask.... What were you thinking! How far away were you and in what type of environment?? Looks scary to me.

[Polar01]

Christina: if I may suggest something, as the bear is the main subject only sharpen the bear a much better way in my way of thinking is, use the select tool only select the areas you want sharp, once selected if a PC Ctrl J (copy to a new layer), apply a high pass filter setting no less than 1 no more than 3 and then select the blend mode.

Cheers:

Allan

[Brownbear]

Thank you Donald. Good to know. I photographed this bear through an opening in a wire fence. reflections etc were a challenge. I will go back another day and hope for more luck.

Hmmm. I thought that shot was the ugly duckling of the bunch.. Will look at it again tomorrow.

Thank you.

I think the 'problem' with the first two is that there is very little tonal variation across the image. As a result, we don't get much definition on the bear itself and it also disappears into the background.

On the other hand the third one is a beauty. There is good tonal variation, including on the fur on the neck where highlighted wisps of fur give it the texture it needs

[Brownbear]

Hi Susan,
Good to know. Yes, the fur looks funny to me but I guess bears are messy. These for photographed through a fence, no worries Just having fun. But I would love to photograph one in the wild... One day!

Hi Christina: I also prefer the third shot for the better lighting and composition. From what I have been reading on these forums, it is difficult to photograph "wet fur" as it loses texture, but your third shot seems to have captured enough of it. I would be
really surprised to find a well groomed bear out there in the wild, so if he looks a little matted and messy to you, well, so be it. It is more than enough to be that close to him and get a shot at all. I gotta ask.... What were you thinking! How far away were you and in what type of environment?? Looks scary to me.

[Brownbear]

Hi Allan,
I did sharpen just parts of the bear... Thanks for the suggestion, layers and filters I'm still to learn but I will try again tomorrow and post my results. Thank you.

Christina: if I may suggest something, as the bear is the main subject only sharpen the bear a much better way in my way of thinking is, use the select tool only select the areas you want sha
rp, once selected if a PC Ctrl J (copy to a new layer), apply a high pass filter setting no less than 1 no more than 3 and then select the blend mode.

Cheers:

Allan

[Steve S]

The third is a beauty, christina. I would say , one of the best shots i've seen you take lately. Just needs a bit more editing work. Pushing your exposure a little more wouldn't hurt either.............................






Very nice image, keep up the good work!!!

[Dave Humphries]

Love the third one Christina

[Mike Buckley]

Agreed with everyone about the third photo. I'll only add that considering how tight the crop is on the bear's left ear, I would crop on the left side and top of the photo to remove about half the empty space in those two areas.

[jprzybyla]

Hello Christina, nice grizzlies. To my eye the first and second appear underexposed, I think pushing it higher helps. As others have said the third is great and Steve's edit shows what is possible.

[Brownbear]

Thank you so much to all, especially Steve for taking the time to edit the 3rd... I have a busy schedule the next few days but as soon as I have time, I will try editing all, focusing on the 3rd photo and post my results here. (part of my training )

When I have another chance to photograph these bears I will up the exposure. At the time I had a real hard time figuring out what looked right for a bear.

Funny about that 3rd photo, I was not going post it because I thought it was pretty bad but posted it so I could learn something new... The first photo is a lot cuter.

Thanks so much! Until later...

[jamn4ex]

How did I miss these? I dont know. I really like the edit Steve did on 3. But I liked your version and would have been ecstatic had I done it.

[Brownbear]

Thank you so much James.. In a few days I hope to post a version, close to Steves... even if it is close that will be good.

[Steve S]

Thank you so much James.. In a few days I hope to post a version, close to Steves... even if it is close that will be good.

Talior your edits to YOUR vision, not mine.................. (Your vision is always better than mine)
What makes ALL of our images special, is our individual views. Make a dicision on what YOU like, and go with it.

[Brownbear]

Thank you Steve.. I appreciate and understand what you are saying, but because I loved your edit and because I'm trying to learn to edit this time around, it helps to have a great visual so I tried to copy the look of your edit (the look) but as you will see I still have a lot to learn (and it is a painful process) and I have a lot of practicing to do.

Basically I selected just the bear in each shot and sharpened just the bear, and also added curves to add contrast... Next I tried to blur out the back ground and heal all the lens flare spots, and darken the background with a brush. I tried Allan's suggestion of a high pass filter layer but once added I did not know what to do with it. The filter was a solid grey and I could see the details of the hairy bear through the grey filter but when I tried to brush away the filter nothing happened so I gave up. (another day and another time)

Here are my edits... I think I improved the cute shot, and the portrait shot but the profile shot is no where near the caliber of your edit. I'm not sure what I did to the bears nose.



For these, I edited as above but I also put the exposure back to as shot (in the original edits posted I darkened the bear) plus I tried to increase the tonal range using levels and curves in LR, but noticed that doing so adds a lot of noise to the photo so I just did a wee bit. I think these edits are better than my attempt to copy Steve's edit?





When I photographed this bear I used Aperture priority 5.6 (to blur the background and for light), iso 320, matrix metering and exposure compensation to -1.3 to correct the histogram (Blown highlights & also because I was worried about overexposing the bear because he is dark)... But it seems like the exposure on the bear should be higher... But my background was not blurry enough and had lots of over exposed white spots (lens flare I think) that I cloned out) When I try this again, are their any suggestions for camera settings? Center weighted metering?

Thank you to everyone.. This has been a great learning exercise for me.

[Mike Buckley]

Christina,

Flip back and forth in the Lytebox between Steve's version of your photo and your latest version of the same photo. Notice the differences in the bear's snout and decide which version you like the best and why.

When I photographed this bear I used Aperture priority 5.6 (to blur the background and for light), iso 320, matrix metering and exposure compensation to -1.3 to correct the histogram (Blown highlights & also because I was worried about overexposing the bear because he is dark)

Use the histogram as your guide in context of all tones in the scene. When in doubt, bracket your exposures to ensure that the most important part of the scene, in this case the bear, is properly exposed.

[Brownbear]

Thank you Mike.. I forgot about bracketing (excited to photograph a bear and will try next time)

Steve's bear snout is far better, sharper, darker, more details and higher contrast... it looks like I blurred my bear snout, somehow it is soft and fuzzy and blurry... I will practice on this photo for my own learning.

Thank you.

Christina,

Flip back and forth in the Lytebox between Steve's version of your photo and your latest version of the same photo. Notice the differences in the bear's snout and decide which version you like the best and why.



Use the histogram as your guide in context of all tones in the scene. When in doubt, bracket your exposures to ensure that the most important part of the scene, in this case the bear, is properly exposed.

[Cantab]

When I have another chance to photograph these bears I will up the exposure. ..

The question that immediately leapt to my mind was where on earth did you find grizzlies willing to pose for you Or perhaps you have a 12,000mm telephoto so you can shoot from a safe distance