"Killer" Grizz Shots. . .

Here's a couple shots from Saterdays treck!

Excellent, as usual. They definetly tell a story, and make you wonder how it ends............I am always interested in the exif of a good shot, if you have time. Strong compositions, it is amazing how you get these animals to pose like that all the time......................

Thanks for the kind words. I appreciate the acknowledgements. The posing thing is all about timing, patience, and knowing what you want before it happens. Those shots take a lot thought, timing, and the biggest part of them is that you really have to be out in the field as much as possible, or can't possibly catch this kind of action.

Keep in mind these shots are once in a life time. The odds of me getting shots like this again are very slim. Its just I was ready for the opportunity when it presented itself. I'm a hunter, i've been around grizzlies a lot and when she started looken over those sheep, I know that I had better move into a position to shoot through the sheep and catch the bear sizing up the situation.

Some would say I got lucky, not me, I call spending the last 5 years looking for these shots, and then being ready when they show up.

How it ended was that grizz chased those sheep all over the mtn. As soon has she got a little closer, and started acting like she wanted to own the hill, i got out of her way. She has a new cub and she was acting very protective of it. I did not want to give her a reason to chase me, so I moved off as soon as she "locked-on" to that sheep in the second photo. . .

I shot around 1000 frames in about two hours, but only got a hand full where the sheep and bear were intereacting so to speak. I had to hustle to get in to position, and when I got there, things moved very fast.

Before these shots, the bear took a nap with her cub for about an hour while I sat, hunkerd down in the frezzing cold, 35mp wind for about an hour (I managed to get some cool shots of her sleeping too - I know, blown highllights, but sometimes you have to expose for the subject and NOT the highlights) . . . All in all, i think I got maybe 25-30 REAL keepers, in 13 hours of shooting and hiking. . . I almost thought it was going to be a wasted day. . . LOL Boy was I wrong! It was kind of hard to go back to photographing the same ol thing after that experence!

By the way what do you mean by exif data, I dont know how to check and but I can tell you what I was shooting and most of the settings from off the top of my head. What do you want to know?

Man. That just takes all the fun out of the great little hummingbird shots I got over the weekend. LOL!!!

To say these are incredible would be an understatement. Great story how you got these too talk about committment! It had to be quite an adrenalin rush. What a treat to see a few thanks for sharing.

I am stunned by the photos with the Bears and Big Horn Sheep. Incredible...

By exif I mean lens & camera, iso- shutter speed and f-stop.Or other related technical data, filters, tri-pod, etc. I have mine in the CS2 bridge, as well as other places where I keep my shots.

"Knowing what you want before it happns." Interesting comment.

These shots are one in a million. I think it's interesting that the first shot is a perspective with the grizz in focus, while the second is the ram in focus. The baby's really ice the cake on these. Congratulations on these shots. You earned them! I do not call these luck at all.
Patience and skill coupled with a hell of a nose. You must really trust yourself with these bears to be so near the cub, and thier dinner! Holy shit!

exif - second shot
d2000/mbd200
200-400 f4 with kirk foot
1.4 tc
f/8 1/250 iso 400
white balance cloudy
matrix metering

bogan carbon tripod - they have the winged locks which are essential for quick action tripod use. I dont usually carry my monster carbon tripod to on a trip like this because the twist locks are toooooo slooooooooooooow. . .

foba super ballhead = easy to use, it's not the smoothest ballhead out there but it's tough and I the large winged handle makes it easy to run with gloves on.

The snow shots were manual metered off the snow. I wanted some detail in the snow, but I also wanted to get some detail in the bears, and the sun was shining directly over head, about the worst possible lighting for snow and almost black subjects! I know it was cloudy WB but I cant remember the shutter speed ISO and ap. . . sorry.

I dont remember the rest of data, if I find it I'll post it. . .

I really do trust myself, but I was a good distance away with a very large ravine and lots of natural food sources around me. I sized up the fact that even while a gizzly is protective of her baby, she almost never will travel those distances unless there's really a compelling reason, and humans usually are not enough of a reason. She wont leave that baby for long. Once she crossed the snow and got the kill attitude is when I left. . . I dont think she would have come after me, but you never know with grizzly bears, and I did not want to have a stand off with her, I was there to have fun, not get in her way. . .

"Knowing what you want" I always go to the field with a plan. I always look at the weather, and the current conditions, both of the animal and the environment. Right now most of the animals are spending a lot of time feeding. They also are sheeding so I'll be lookin for shots of them scratching, rubbing and eating. I'll also try to find predations shots, like these. . .

I always try to get some of each when there's more than one subject, you never know when they might come in handy, or which one really turns out. . . Subject distance, perspective, focal length, and apature also are part of the decision making. Long lenses dont have much depth of field ever stopped down, so at 500mm even if you shoot at f11 or f16 your NOT going to get the two in focuse at the same time.

You do great work Tony ,wish I had your energy.lol
Thanks For sharing Randall

Tony, as you already know, these are absolutely amazing. As you said, they are 'once in a lifetime shots' and you are very fortunate to have had the experience.

Thanks for sharing!
James

Thanks James and other's who checked out these shots. I'm still on my "rush" from the experence! It was awesome getting into position to get the griz and the sheep in the same frame. I was huffing and puffing to get their in time. . .

Thank's for telling us how you got these shots.

An incredible experience, Tony! As you said, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and you certainly made the most of it with those outstanding images. That the Griz knew you were there but chose Rack of Lamb instead of photographer was good fortune.

Fantastic series!

Best regards,

Dick:)

Looks like Jim just cant stay far enough away. I saw him last ween when he was up here in my neck of the woods but was run out of town by the local biologist for getting to close to bears, again . . .

Close encounters

By BRODIE FARQUHAR
Star-Tribune correspondent Friday, May 25, 2007


A nature writer and photographer identified Thursday as the victim of a Wednesday grizzly bear mauling in Yellowstone National Park has had previous run-ins with bears.

Jim Cole of Bozeman, Mont., survived a similar encounter in Glacier National Park in 1993. And he was charged with and later acquitted of approaching within 20 yards of a grizzly bear family in 2004 in the Gardner Hole area of Yellowstone.

Cole, 57, has published books on the lives of grizzly bears in Montana, Wyoming and Alaska. His mauling this week has renewed discussion about the dangers faced by wildlife photographers in grizzly country.

Cole told rangers he was attacked by a sow with a cub while taking photographs along Trout Creek in Hayden Valley. Wildlife biologists consider that area northwest of Fishing Bridge as prime grizzly bear country.Despite severe injuries to his face, Cole managed to walk two or three miles to the Grand Loop Road, where he was discovered by visitors about 1 p.m. Wednesday.

Cole remains hospitalized at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls, where he was listed in fair condition Thursday. A hospital spokeswoman said Coles family didnt expect him to be able to talk to the news media until Tuesday.

Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash said the mauling investigation continues, but is difficult in that there were no witnesses other than Cole. Park biologists have not been able to determine which grizzly bear sow was involved in the incident, he said.

When Cole was charged with getting too close to grizzlies in 2004, news reports indicated that prosecutors wanted to ban him from the park for a year, plus impose a fine and a suspended jail sentence. But he was acquitted by a magistrate after arguing that he had come upon the bears inadvertently.

Cole walked out of the backcountry and took himself to the hospital after being injured by a grizzly in Glacier National Park in September 1993. He is the author of two books: "Lives of Grizzlies, Montana and Wyoming," and "Lives of Grizzlies, Alaska."

This is the first time a person has been injured by a bear in Yellowstone since September 2005. There have been eight minor bear-caused human injuries in the park since 2000. The last bear-caused human fatality in Yellowstone occurred in 1986, when Bill Tesinky, a Montana mechanic and budding wildlife photographer, was killed and eaten by a bear.

You can do it all right and still wind up in a wrong situation, said Jeff Vanuga, a Dubois-based wildlife photographer whose work has been published worldwide in magazines and major advertising campaigns. Theres no cookbook, no template.

For starters, Vanuga said, you need long lenses when photographing wildlife. He uses a 500 mm F4 lens. Secondly, he said, any animal can be dangerous, and that certainly counts for grizzly bears.

There are relatively safe places to shoot bears, like Alaska, he said, but Wyoming and Yellowstone bears cannot be considered safe, even if they appear to be fairly tolerant of people.

Vanuga confines his photography of grizzly bears to roadside bears, and even then he uses long lenses and never gets too close. He doesnt hike into the backcountry anymore for grizzly bear photos, but if he did, hed go in a group of three or four people.

Jim Peaco, the staff photographer for Yellowstone, said hormones, babies and food are the three things a wildlife photographer doesnt want to mess with. Male elk in the rut are dangerous, he said, as are mothers defending their young (elk, bears and other animals), while bears can be quite testy defending a carcass.

Peaco said his first instinct upon spotting a bear in the backcountry is to retreat, and then think about photography. He uses a 600 mm lens.

Peaco rigorously follows Yellowstone rules about staying at least 100 yards away from bears.

Theyre so big and quick, he said.

* Last we knew: A man was mauled by a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park on Wednesday.

* The latest: He was identified Thursday as wildlife photographer Jim Cole, who survived a similar encounter in 1993.

* What's next: Park officials will continue to investigate the incident while Cole recovers in and Idaho hospital.

The wife and I arrived in Yellowstone Saturday May 19th and saw a sow gizzly with cub by the Fishing Bridge area, we stayed in our car as her and the cub crossed the road no more than 30 yards in front of us, that was scary enough as she was huge. My wife has a picture of her looking back at us with the cub in tow as they passed.
We had just left heading to Washington the day the mauling took place, my step son told us about it when we called him later that night. He works for the parks service in Yellowstone and from what he heard it looks like a case of being to close for comfort to a cub and momma didn't like it.

Hi FinalShot,

the first image is a very interessting shot, but you have a lot of negative space at the top and right site.
On the second image i would set the sharping to the cub not to the mother, because i can imagine that the grizzly was more interessted at the cub then at the mother. from the photographical idea the second one is very cool.

Regards, ankimo

-------------------------------------------
www.ankimo.net - nature photographers website
-------------------------------------------

thanks ankimo for your comments, I think youre correct. As you can imagine, photographing grizzlies (lower 48 bears) in the wild can be quite a challenge. Given the chance to get closer, without compromising the bears saftey or my own, I would have done a lot of things different with all those shots. That cub snow shot - in full sunlight - is a fairly deep crop into a 10 mp image. I would have loved to be closer but just could not risk the bears saftey. that kind of contrast at that distance, i'm lucky to have come home with anything even marginally worth looking at.

Thanks for looking and for your comments.

What do you think of these? All three have been published in widely circulated periodicals or calenders, or both. . .

Hey Tony,

Glad to see you posted that article about Jim Cole. It certainly helps bring the realities of how important it is to respect the critters we are photographing.

"Given the chance to get closer, without compromising the bears saftey or my own, I would have done a lot of things different with all those shots. "

What do you think you would have done differently?

James