Polar bears play fighting in the snow. Canon 1D Mark IV, 500mm f/4L IS, 1/800 sec @ f/5.0, ISO 800
As a 700mm equivalent lens on the 1D Mark IV, I was a little tight for these bears with the 500mm, but I needed the frame rate of that camera to capture the sequential action. In order to increase resolution on this image, I merged a handful of photos that I took just seconds apart. While the polar bears remain the same, I added some snow and sky to give the image more negative space for type and other design content. I preferred the range and file size of my 1Ds for this scene, but the frame rate is not fast enough and the buffer fills up too fast when shooting fast action. Merging images to create more space is a retrospective solution, however, I find myself shooting adjacent space often in order to do this. Many times, it is the lack of space that can inhibit a photo sale in the stock photography market, and the added bonus of a much higher resolution helps also.
Nicely done Patrick,nicely done!
Such a beautiful image, Patrick! The bears look so great against that blue sky color. Very interesting idea for increasing the space — I hadn’t thought of doing that before, but it makes a lot of sense!
Thanks Pat and Chuck, while it is not a purist image, any means to increase file size and working space can be a boost in the stock photography genre.
Beautiful shot Patrick. I envy your time with polar bears. I have used that technique many times now to save my bacon after compositional errors or simply to add space. One suggestion, if you have not changed the subject matter (i.e. cloning something out or adding something) is to call it a panoramic stitch rather than composite. “Composite” is often associated with images where 2 elements that did not occur in the same place or same time are added together. The term composite carries a negative connotation among many viewers and editors. If you simply are adding space that you would have captured with a wider lens, I would use the other term.
Milo,
I concur with your terminology. On the right side of the image, I added a tiny bit to the bears fur, in order to get the snow looking right. So, I was being extra conservative, just to respect the real capture folks. Composite generally does imply two distinctly different images, whereas a blend or a stitch does not. And just for fun, I’ll change the title of this post 🙂