D800E Bearly Acceptable

[drr1531]

Earlier this week I flew over to Katmai NP for a couple of days to shoot some bears. Here are a couple of quickies.

D800E, 70-200 f2.8

f/13 @ 200 mm, 1/15, ISO 100

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f/5.6 @ 200 mm, 1/1000, ISO 400

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D800E, 200-400VR

f/5.6 @ 380 mm, 1/500, ISO 800
View attachment 1214244

f/5.6 @ 400 mm, 1/320, ISO 800

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[wild life]

Those are great photos!!!! Well done!!! Wish we had Brown Bears in New Mexico.

 

[Butlerkid]

Wonderful! Nice choice of shutter speed on the first one. Great use of 200-400 on the other images! Well done!

On trips like these, I envy your state of residence....other times....not so much! LOL!

 

[vindex1963]

Amazing shots!!!

 

[mathjak107]

All i can say is awesome shots.

 

[hockeyron]

Absolutely beautiful shots Dan ….

ron

 

[catalyst]

Wow, Dan! He / she must have been *very* focused to hold still for that long in the first. All are terrific, and your sequence of presenting them is great - really liking the postprandial #4.

 

[fdevyatkin]

Nicely done Dan!
Fred

 

[soxOZ]

Very nicely capture Dan..!!!

 

[HappyFish]

Cool shots> Really like #1. What kind of area are you standing in as you shoot these? How is the walk in and out?

 

[drr1531]

Thanks for the comments, everyone. Glad you enjoyed them. I'll post a few more once I'm done culling through several hundred more images :frown:

...Wish we had Brown Bears in New Mexico.

Having access to them is nice. Living near them not so great. You never see the ones close by and when you do it is usually a bad thing :frown:

Cool shots>...What kind of area are you standing in as you shoot these? How is the walk in and out?

At Brooks Falls where these were shot you are restricted to standing on elevated viewing platforms. It is about a mile walk (one way) from the visitor center/camp to the platforms. About half of the walk is on a dirt road and half on a foot path through the woods. There is a better than even chance of running into bears along the hike in/out. There is no restriction against making the hike solo but not a bad idea to stick with a group.

Google Katmai NP or Brooks Falls to find the Park Service web site.

 

[mbg914]

Great Job Dan, Beautiful images. Great place to go and I hope to get there someday!

Michael

 

[james thiel]

Some of the best detail shots I have seen from Brooks. Well done. Love No 1

 

[drr1531]

Thanks for the comments. Jim, coming away with the detailed shots is an example of making lemonade out of lemons. I went over there with the idea of getting the iconic shot of a bear catching a salmon in mid-jump. Unfortunately I was the proverbial day late. The run had slowed overnight and when I got there they were all fishing at the bottom of the falls. Once in a while one of the lesser bears would take up position at the top of the fall until the big boys at the bottom got annoyed and ran it off. In addition most of the bears coats were really shaggy from rubbing/shedding. A lot of them also had fresh wounds/scars around head/neck from fighting. So after a couple of hours of disappointing full body shots I started narrowing in on details instead. Funny how things work sometimes. Many times I come away with my best shots being way different than what I planned.

The first shot in this thread is a crop out of a horizontal frame. I've got some full frame shots but have to cull through them for the sharp ones (low ss).

 

[MrDalgof]

That's a great series! I love #1.

 

[SteveK]

Really like the tight close up (#2)!

 

[drr1531]

Thanks, guys. Steve the closeup is cropped from a full frame D800 image that was not quite head to toe of the bear walking straight towards the camera. That was shot at 200mm and if it had been full frame as posted I'd likely not have been around to tell the tale :smile:

 

[Kattekrab]

Very very nice! Especially the close up!

 

[drr1531]

Thanks, Frank.

 

[merlin]

Quite amazing -- very well done indeed! Almost like being there...