Species: Brown Bear, Salmon | Location: Brooks Falls, Alaska, United States Of America
This Mama Bear brought her three cubs to the top of Brooks Falls during the salmon run to both feed them and to teach them how to fish. Notice how intently they are watching her! After taking an insurance shot at a normal fast shutter speed, I deliberately shot this at a slow 1/25th of a second shutter speed to try for smoother water over the falls. But that meant the bears couldn't be moving. I took a lot of shots and threw most of them away because at least one of them moved but eventually I got this. Of course, I didn't know it at the time so I shot a lot more. Also of course, there was no way to keep the fish from moving without a composite! I also tried slower shutters but the odds of movement increased. Because of the multiple bears, I opted for f16 for more depth of field. Experimenting is fun especially when you have so many opportunities for a shot.
I didn't have a tripod. Instead, I had my elbows braced on the rail of the platform, holding my camera as steady as I could while shooting high speed burst mode. Sony's image stabilization is terrific. I don't think this would have worked as well with older cameras.
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