Always the Eye...
by Brad Hill
Another shot I captured during my annual "Grizzlies of the Khutzeymateen" Instructional Photo Tour last week. It's posted here for a few reasons...
First, I Iike it! Between that rich reflection, that great front left paw, and that ever-present watchful eye (still watching us, even while drinking), it works for me. But most of all, I love that eye. Many of the bears in the Khutzeymateen are tolerant of five-legged uprights (think 2 human legs and 3 tripod legs) and some, like this one, seem to even trust humans. But, that trust has a limit. The bears will and DO go about their everyday activities with a small number of humans nearby, but they almost never take their eyes off of them. Respect the bears, give them their distance and space, and they will respect you. But you just can't take them for granted or "push them" - they see and notice everything. Cool bears, but still very wild bears...
Second, this image is one MAJOR rule-breaker that no one could have thought of capturing a few short years ago! Think of it: heavy overcast skies with light rain; 400mm lens with 2x teleconverter (800mm effective focal length); hand-held at 1/250s at f11; shot at ISO 2200. While some of the technology used to capture this image currently resides in the atmospherically high price-range (particularly the D3s and the 400mm f2.8 VR lens), in a year or two (at the most), much of this technology will trickle down into the price ranges that enthusiasts can justify shelling out. I can't think of a time when photography was more exciting - we can now dream about - and capture - shots that would have been totally impossible just a year or two ago. Talk about cool - it's real easy to get charged up about photography right now!
Subject: Adult female grizzly (Ursus arctos) drinking from a pond
Location: Khutzeymateen Inlet, BC, Canada
Camera: Nikon D3s
Lens: 400mm f2.8 VR plus 2x TC-20EIII teleconverter (800mm EFL) - hand-held
Exposure: 1/250s @ f11; ISO 2200; no compensation from metered exposure setting.
Crop: Negligible. This is about 95% of full frame
All comments and critiques welcome, but probably better to view larger image first.
Cheers...
Brad
Comments
16 commentsCouldn't agree with your assessment more. It's funny that some species like bears will never take their eyes off you, while others (which should be more threatened by our presence) will act like we aren't even there. This photo is a true reflection (no pun intended) of true animal (us) to animal (bears) interaction.
Peter
Towards the end of photography. Everything will become video. You will take stills from video footage, and that's your photographs. Frame rates are increasing constantly, and it won't be long before you'll be able to shoot a FF camera at 24 frames per second, which is basically the speed that standard film stocks as 16mm and 35mm record at.
Interesting thought, and I've heard others say this. But, I'm not sure I agree that still photography will become simply isolated frames of video. Red may think that (I'm sure you're familiar with them), but as resolution climbs beyond what is needed in even HD video (and printing demands will always keep still images at higher resolutions than video images) there's little economic gain for video companies to invest in technology to deliver ways to capture and transfer the huge volumes of data required for 50 MB - or more images - at 30 fps (especially when the bulk of their customers want video for video's sake). I also think the cost to put all the pro-level still camera features into a video camera would put these machines into the stratosphere price wise.
But only time will tell - maybe you'll be right and me wrong! Thanks for the interesting tangent!
Brad
Another fantastic shot and at ISO 2200, that's amazing! Looks like it's about time to upgrade.
Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, Wi