It's a Family Affair...

It's a Family Affair...

We encountered this family of grizzly bears in a remote inlet in the autumn of 2014. Because of the remoteness of the location and the time of the year (definitely NOT sun-tanning season) we were able to spend some quality time with the bears completely on our own. As such, the bears had little distracting them and they could focus on doing what bears do in the autumn. And, of course, in coastal areas that means fishing! Here mom has caught herself a salmon and - like a good mom who knows she must keep herself in good shape so she can continue to look after her cubs - she was completely unwilling to share her bounty! The cubs did a little pleading and gave her some great mooching stares, but she was steadfast in her refusal to give up the goods.

This shot was captured in an estuary at the top of a long inlet. The bears are in one of many channels that bisects the grassy "delta" - and the 15-20' daily tides not only flood and completely cover the estuary (the shore below was completely submerged just a few hours after this shot was captured), but they also bring in new snacks and meals like salmon carcasses and other food for the bears on a frequent basis. So each day the bears explore the estuary looking for whatever edible bits the tide brought in.

Working with multiple subjects is always a challenge and, because of the limited depth of field of "long" lenses, it's even more challenging when using a super-telephoto lens. I captured this shot with the Nikkor 400mm f2.8E VR prime lens. I was fortunate in that the 4 subjects aligned themselves ALMOST on the same focal plane, but I still had to stop down quite a bit (to f8) to ensure that all the subjects would be sufficiently sharp. At the time it was heavily overcast, so having a camera with me with outstanding ISO performance (the Nikon D4s) - and thus providing me with the option to stop down and still shoot at a fairly high shutter speed (1/400s) - was absolutely essential in allowing me to capture this shot. There's always an attraction in getting a camera with higher and higher resolution (like the D800-series of cameras from Nikon or the coming 5Ds cameras from Canon), but because a LOT of wildlife photography is done in low light I'll personally opt for better ISO performance over more resolution on my primary wildlife camera every time.

Subject: Female Grizzly (Ursus arctos) NOT sharing a fish dinner with her cubs!
Location: Great Bear Rainforest, BC, Canada
Camera: Nikon D4s
Lens: Nikkor 400mm f2.8E VR. Hand-held from floating zodiac. VR on and in "Sport" mode.
Exposure: 1/400s @ f8; ISO 4000. -0.33 stop compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.
Crop: Minor - this is about 90% of the full-framed image

More details about the image - including a 2400-pixel version of the image - can be found here on my website:

http://www.naturalart.ca/galleries/latest/.

Comments and critiques welcomed - probably best to view the larger version prior to doing so!

Cheers...

Brad