There was two of us and both of us were watching for movements that would alert us if anything that would go sideward. We kept a good distance, used a 600mmF:4 and a F5. This is a scanned image so I can crop it so it looks like I can touch it. Doing that is pretty damn stupid. This is not the first time with bears. These bears are coastal bears at salmon migration time. I shot Kodiak grizzlies a couple of years earlier so I knew what to look for in behavior.

I don't want his mama to eat me, that way I use big giant lens.

In 2003 I was at Katmai National Park in Geographic Harbor shooting Grizzly bears. In this image run I am standing in a salmon stream and the salmon are brushing against my legs while I'm behind my manual focus Nikon 600mm F:4 and F5 film camera. I rounded a small bend and set up on this sleeping bear.

Here are a few butterfly shots I got in the mid 2000's using a Nikon D1x with a 5.4 mega pixel sensor and a Nikon D2x with a 12.4 mega pixel sensor. The lens on all shots is the Nikkor 70~180mm F:4.5~5.6 AF micro zoom. Many of the shots are flash filled with a SB-28 strobe.

For warblers I use a Nikon 300mmF:4 on a monopod, dirt sprint cars I use a Nikon 80~200mmF:2.8. Warbler distance is around 20 feet or less and Auto ISO. For sprint cars 40 to 60 feet but at 2000 ISO.

I shoot night racing sprint cars on dirt with flash. So I set the ISO to 2000, shutter speed to 1/320 and switch from manual to shutter mode. Works great. For warblers ( I have set all cameras to high speed shutter) so I set the strobe to -2.7 and shutter is somewhere around 1/1250 and I adjust the exposure compensation has needed and aperture is about 6.3 or so. So its variable for different subjects.

I have written a 26+ page PDF on shooting warblers, hummers and yard birds with flash, Send me a email (Larrys@bex.net) and I'll forward it to you. This PDF is written with Nikon equipment in mind but it will apply to Canon also.

Its really easy. Use maybe 21 or 25 focus spots. That should fill the "circle" you see on your focus screen. Then set your shutter to 1/2500 or higher and running auto ISO is a big help. In processing the image noise can be dealt with Topaz Denoise AI.

During the 70's I shot a lot at Winchester and Eldora, here are 2 shots at both tracks. Since the insurance companies have ruled against shooting outside of turn 4 at Winchester and Eldora has a chainlink fence on the inside wall that autofocus will not go thru, so I haven't been to Eldora since 1990. Also I understand USAC doesn't run at Winchester anymore so I haven't been there in years.

Here are a bunch of Plover shots I got yesterday using 19 years old Sigma 800mm F:5.6 AF and a 9 year old Nikon D600. It seems the camera really likes the old lens.

Here is a collection of BIF's even going back into the film days

Here are 7 images of the baby piping plovers show their growth from hatching on July 1st up yesterday July 20th. I was not able to a true timeline since I had other photo projects to tend to, but the images gives you an idea of how quickly they grow.

I got a Z6 from NPS and I sent it back a week early. MY old D600 gives better results the the Z6 did.

I don't understand how a little D850 and 24~120 would be considered a bear. A D5 with a 200~500 just begins to be heavy. Maybe a strengthening program would be in order.

I was very surprised at how well the Sigma lens worked with my old D600