East Yellowstone Grizzly Series - New Order

[Ed_Williams]

Sit and Scratch

Dandelion Buffet

Stepping Out

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

I believe this is going to end up being a problem bear. We were at the parking lot near the Southeast entrance to Yellow NP when my wife said get the camera, there’s a grizzly bear coming. It was coming from the area near the East entrance station. When it got to a storage shed, it started to sniff around and tried to pry open the shed. It wasn’t able to, so it moved on to an old wood pile to look for some grubs. When it was working the wood pile, there was a tree in the way so I walked up the pathway to see if I could see around the tree. As soon as I got a clear view, it left the wood pile and started grazing the meadow for grass and dandelions, moving in my direction. Pretty soon I noticed it was taking a really good look at me and sniffing the air. I decided to slowly back up toward the road a ways, and needed to anyway because the bear was completely filling up my lens (100-500 mm with 1.4TC, rendering me with a 420-700 mm lens) 420 mm was too close. After I backed away, it continued to work its way up the meadow. Several cars were gathering so we decided to move on up the road to the next pullout to see if we could intercept the bear as it worked its way up the meadow toward us. Sure enough, it kept coming. We had an amazing session with this character as it calmly munched away. It decided to take a scratch break and sat down in the meadow behind a big rock. After a few more cars gathered, we decided it was time to move on up the road.

Specific Feedback

Not sure about the images being so big. Also not sure about the square crops. It was a bright afternoon, so I ended up toning down the light as much as I could. Any suggestions and comments are welcomed and appreciated.

Technical Details

1. Canon R5, f10, 1/250 sec, iso 200, 420 mm
2. R5, f14, 1/400 sec, iso 500, 420 mm
3. R5, f10, 1/250 sec, iso 800, 420 mm
4. R5, f20, 1/100 sec, iso 800, 420 mm

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[Jim_Zablotny]

I have only seen grizzly’s about from 3/4’s of a mile out. I’m glad that you were able to get some shots of this bear. You may want to pull out some details in the eyes as they are in deep shadow. Otherwise, a fine series…Jim

[Ed_Williams]

Thank you for looking and for commenting on them @Jim_Zablotny. I do remember seeing the details in his eyes as he was looking directly at me and sniffing the air. I’m not sure why I’m not getting any detail in these shots as I have selected the deep shade and reduced the shadows by about 35%. I will try one more round of shadow reductionto see if can get more out of them.

[Willemd (Alexander Willem Degroot)]

I love going to Yellowstone and photographing the wildlife there, so I was naturally drawn to your title and images. I really like the square crop and I will probably try it with some of my images. Also, I had the same thought that @Jim_Zablotny had, i.e. that brightening the eyes would improve the images. I typically do this with all my wildlife, along with sharpening around the eye and sometimes adding a catch light. I tried it with your Sit and Scratch image. See what you think!

[Ed_Williams]

Nice job getting some better detail in the eyes @Willemd. I need to go back to my original RAW files and rework these. I have a few others from this session that I was able to get some better detail in the eyes. I guess its been long enough since I made this post to put a few more up now. Thank you for your work on this. Ed