Anyone here shooting bears?

Dave Wilkinson

Dave Wilkinson

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Just a little light-hearted Christmas request - been watching some fascinating tv documentaries about bears lately, and often wished I was in a position to shoot some ( with a camera! ). Many of you guys must get that chance, but I've never seen any posted, - so how about it? and maybe an amusing or scary tale related to these wonderfull animals?, 'cos the only bear I see, sits at the end of the bed! 😀 ( it's sixty years old! )
Seasons greetings! Dave.
 
Once saw a bear in Yosemite peel the door (like the foil on a TV dinner) off a Volvo, in pursuit of a packet of freeze-dried food that the owner had stupidly left on the front seat. I was laughing too hard to snap a picture, and so was everyone else present.
 
Sure - just not with a rangefinder. Took this at Denali National park last year. Used a 400mm lens on a DX-format DSLR

2697135143_403a7be718_o.jpg
 
Well, I was going to say "nice grab" (guy wearing thong), but I could not resist the teenager reaction when it popped into my head. 😀
 
'Shooting bears' is very popular with the photograph community here in Scandinavia these days. The population of 'European brown bear' is increasing here in Scandinavia and you really don't have to travel far outside Oslo, Stockholm or Helsinki to have a reasonable good chance of seeing one.

Photographing them is another matter. The best way is to hide in a camuflaged hut close to dead animals as bait, usually dead moose from some traffic accident. A guy in Finland runs this bear-photography-safari-company that is the most popular and well known among us Scandinavian photographers.

Link here: http://www.articmedia.fi./

The chance of seeing and being able to take 'keeper-shots' of bears are close to 99%. Lassi Routiainen runs a very professional safari business. Several other competitors have started up similar businesses in both Sweden and Norway, but none, to my knowledge, have come even close to the 'the rate of success' as Lassi Routiainen/Articmedia. Litterally busloads of Norwegian amateur photographers have done these 'package tours' to Finland which costs about a thousand Euros for a short week's stay.

If you want something less polished and something more rough, I know of a range of guys that are professional wildlife photographers (and ex. pro soldiers) that takes 'clients' for trips out in the wilderness here in Scandinavia. These trips are for people used to outdoor life that will not call for a ambulance if they are stung by a mosquito. The price runs up to several thousand Euros per week.

If you like to live dangerously, and like to photograph - and fight polar bears, a trip with this guy, Børge Ousland to the North Pole is a must: http://www.ousland.com/

Børge Ousland has crossed both the Artic and Antarctic 'several times', an ex. Norwegian Naval Special Forces, so he know a thing or two about how to survive under extreme circumstances. If you are good skiier, have a good health, younger than 45 - and can pay the cost, he will guide you on a skiing trip across the Arctic ice. From Siberia to Canada. Close encounters with polar bears are garanteed. Hopefully, you will survive all of them. - You will have to pay in advance, of cause.
 
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I've seen a few but only have a very few, very poor shots of them.
This one is the best🙂rolleyes🙂 of what I've taken. It was dusk and I used something like 1/4 sec. shutter speed. That and being a bit worried about which way the bear was going to go after it noticed me made for quite a bit of camera shake. I'd been shooting towards the lake, glanced over towards the truck, thought to my self, "Gee, that's a pretty big dog...oh s**t! That's not a dog!" I shot the last two or three frames on the roll I had in the Bessa, and waited while the bear looked at me, sniffed at me, and eventually decided to wander away off the driveway behind the truck.
The bears around where I was (Raquette Lake in the Adirondack Mountains in NY state) are not very aggressive and generally not a problem to hikers/campers/etc. Unless they are doing something dumb--messing with cubs is the usual way to get into serious trouble with them. And occasionally they will be surprised by a hiker. That doesn't happen too often, the bears know you are there long before you know they are there and they will avoid you. Usually.
Rob
 

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A couple of years ago, I rode a bicycle with half a dozen of my good friends on a century ride in the White Mountains, here in NH in the USA. Before the ride, bears came up in the conversation, for some reason. I remarked to the group that I had never seen a live, wild bear. About 2 hours later, we were riding in a paceline, about 25 mph on a very slight downgrade. A black bear ran out of the woods and jumped on the guardrail, about to cross the road right in front of us. The lead rider had to swerve to avoid him, but he was so close he was going on reflexes and didn't even know what it was he was avoiding. The rest of us behind, with fractionally more time and much less oxygen debt, recognized it as a bear. Seeing us confused the bear, and he turned 180° on top of the guardrail and ran back into the woods. No time to stop and photograph him. After we regained composure, I remarked to the group that I had never seen a bag of money fall off an armored truck, but that didn't work.
 
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Had to find this one. On a hike last summer--early to mid June. Maybe?--saw the cub and was concerned about where the mother was. As I looked at this photo again just now, the mom is in the frame as well.
I stayed put and let the bear head on its way.
I was told by some of the local hunters that "You don't have to be faster than the bear, just faster than one of your fellow hikers."
Rob
 

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rbiemer said:
Had to find this one. On a hike last summer--early to mid June. Maybe?--saw the cub and was concerned about where the mother was. As I looked at this photo again just now, the mom is in the frame as well.
I stayed put and let the bear head on its way.
I was told by some of the local hunters that "You don't have to be faster than the bear, just faster than one of your fellow hikers."
Rob
Click to expand...

A potentially dangerous situation to get so close to a mother & cub. Here in Scandinavia we have had several bear attacks of which three were fatal in the last two years.
 
rbiemer said:
I've seen a few but only have a very few, very poor shots of them.
This one is the best🙂rolleyes🙂 of what I've taken. It was dusk and I used something like 1/4 sec. shutter speed. That and being a bit worried about which way the bear was going to go after it noticed me made for quite a bit of camera shake. I'd been shooting towards the lake, glanced over towards the truck, thought to my self, "Gee, that's a pretty big dog...oh s**t! That's not a dog!" I shot the last two or three frames on the roll I had in the Bessa, and waited while the bear looked at me, sniffed at me, and eventually decided to wander away off the driveway behind the truck.
The bears around where I was (Raquette Lake in the Adirondack Mountains in NY state) are not very aggressive and generally not a problem to hikers/campers/etc. Unless they are doing something dumb--messing with cubs is the usual way to get into serious trouble with them. And occasionally they will be surprised by a hiker. That doesn't happen too often, the bears know you are there long before you know they are there and they will avoid you. Usually.
Rob
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What camera/lens combination did you use?
 
Chuck Albertson said:
Once saw a bear in Yosemite peel the door (like the foil on a TV dinner) off a Volvo, in pursuit of a packet of freeze-dried food that the owner had stupidly left on the front seat. I was laughing too hard to snap a picture, and so was everyone else present.
Click to expand...

They are famous for that. I once came back from a climb up Mt. Whitney to find bear claw marks around the molding of my car windows. I had some food in a bear-proof container in the trunk. They're supposed to be air tight, but I guess not to a bear. 😉

/T
 
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