The water bear

[Steve Foss]

My mate and I were boating toward our last spot on Burntside last night about 10 minutes before sundown when we spotted this big boy swimming between islands.

I pulled up close enough to rattle off a couple bursts, but didn't want to stress the animal too much. We backed off, and I was able to get one at slightly too slow a shutter speed when he looked back at us through the branches on the island.

I ramped iso up when he got close to the island and I thought he might pause for a last look, like they do sometimes. I really like that comp, but the image is a little soft. I would have killed for IS right then or an f2.8 lens.

Oh well, it's always something, isn't it?

The swimmer

iso200, 1/200 at f5.6

Wearing a pine needle cap

iso800, 1/100 at f5.6, handheld

[finnbay]

Good exposure, Steve. Tough to get that detail in a dark animal against a light background. Never know what to expect from those pesky bruins!

[Steve Foss]

Ken, I used shadows/highlights to bring out a lot of detail in the bear but at iso800 the noise was a bit too much to make me comfortable, so I just let the blacks become blocked up a bit on purpose to mask the noise.

At that iso and with the sharpening I needed to do, it was a bit of a lose-lose situation. But you should have seen my wife's expression when I told her it was a swimming bear we were approaching!