Behind the Scenes: Bear, Raven and a bit of Luck.

Black bear at the waters edge as a raven flies by on Vancouver Island.

When shooting you can plan all you want, but sometimes everything comes down to luck. Getting this exact framing depends almost entirely on luck.

While in Tofino, we decided to take a day to hop on a boat and check out the shoreline from a different perspective. In doing so we came across a lot of wildlife ranging from bears to grey whales and orcas. Being on the water gave an unobstructed view, as I didn’t need to shoot through a thickly forested mountainside.

This bear was ambling down the waterside looking like it was searching for food. We spent a bit of time watching, idling along, as the bear moved.

For this trip, I was demoing a camera from Olympus. In addition to the camera, they had sent a 300 mm lens which on a Micro 4/3rds sensor shoots like a 600. I had never shot anything quite this long, and there was a learning curve to keep things sharp. I bumped up my ISO to 1250 to be able to keep the shutter speed high. I wanted to have minimal camera shake from hand holding a long lens mixed with the motion of the boat.

As we moved along I continued to frame the bear with the green and the waters edge and continually shot to get the bear in different body positions. At one moment I watched the raven fly through the frame. As I was already had the camera to my eye I continued to fire the shutter. I wasn’t sure at the moment but hoped the bird was close enough to the bear that it would be in focus.

After firing this burst of frames I briefly looked at the back of the camera, saw the bird looked sharp and went back to shooting. I didn’t want to miss another moment by having my camera down for to long, but I knew that was the frame I would be interested in.

Obviously there was no way to predict that the raven would fly through, it was by pure luck that it did. That being said by being prepared and already shooting I was able to capture the image of both.

After bringing this image onto the computer, I did notice the bird wasn’t as sharp as I would normally like. That being said, knowing my use was only for the web, I wasn’t to concerned as I had no plans of blowing the image up to a large size print.

This particular image only required a minimal retouch in Lightroom. I bumped the exposure slightly and brought my blacks down slightly to add a little contrast.

Gear:
Olympus E-M1 Mark II
Olympus M.300 F4.0

Settings:
1/1250 sec at f4.5 , ISO 1250

Thanks to Tofino Marina for the experience. Worth checking out if you’re in Tofino and want to get out on the water.

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Behind the Shot series where I tell the story behind my action, adventure and landscape photography and dissect the techniques and gear that was used to make it.