Two weeks ago I returned from leading my annual Brown Bears of the Finnish Taiga tour. This will have been the third in succession and with each visit, there are more surprises. Different conditions, different bears and different activity. Although warm (+23) it wasn't, thankfully, anywhere near as hot as last year. As on previous occasions, we have use of the 2-person photography hides with each getting an evening/night/morning at each location - swamp, forest and lake. Each provides different perspectives but my favourite this year was the lake hide. To me, it is one the most photogenic locations I have photographed bears at offering reflections, mist and for the second year running, swimming bears! All of us, regardless of which lake hide we sat in had incredible close-up views of an individual swimming within metres of us, so close you could hear it breathing. Incredible!
The bear tour is by far the easiest to pack for. Just bears, no landscape or macro. No difficult kit-decisions to make. I took a Nikon D850 (quite possibly the best camera ever made. There, I've said it!) with the D810 as a backup. Although in the past I've used both camera ports (which are available to each photographer in the hide) with one occupied by a 70-200mm f/2.8 I decided to take just the one lens - my trusty 200-400mm f/4. You'd be hard pushed to find a better lens for hide work where with a simple twist of the zoom ring you can go from close-up to contextual. It's a bit of a lump but fits nicely into my Think Tank Airport Accelerator and the walks we take to the hides are not all that far away.
Often, at the swamp hides, huge bears come to within metres of where you're sitting. It's a wonderful experience where extreme close-ups are possible.
Gull perched at dusk. Unlike countries in the southern hemisphere, dawn and dusk in northern Finland last an age.
The hides are very comfortable. By 5pm we've settled down with cameras at the ready and often within a couple of hours at least one appears and is gradually joined by several others. If you're lucky by a mother with cubs.
Given the lighting was, for the most part, pretty even Auto ISO was the setting I used most often. It's perfect for wildlife photography whereby on Manual exposure you can set your desired shutter speed (often 1/500th sec. with the bears) and aperture (f/4 or f/5.6) and the camera will automatically select the appropriate ISO. Brightness levels can be adjusted through the exposure compensation dial. I've never been too concerned about pixels, much preferring to capture something than to dismiss it through fear of noise and pixelation.
The image above is one such example. Taken at 12.30am it was pretty dark but the lens managed to lock-on without any problem (one enormous benefit of using a fast lens). I used the slowest shutter speed I dared use given the circumstances and at f/4 the resulting ISO was 91228. Only a little noise reduction was applied in LR since any such adjustments invariably soften the image. One important factor to note is that you'll produce cleaner images through using a high ISO and exposing correctly than you will a lower one and deliberately underexposing to achieve a similar shutter speed thinking you can always lighten in post-production. By doing so, however, results in greater noise.
The highlight of the trip, experienced and enjoyed by all other members of the group.
And, finally, a welcome surprise at 4.30am. More often than not, in wildlife photography, you either have great conditions but no subject or vice versa and rarely do they ever come together. When they do, it makes all the waiting worthwhile.
I'll be running a similar tour next year so if you'd like to join me you can express your interest by using the contact form, here.
