A decent sunset over willow flats. Grizzly 610 and her two cubs were busy chasing elk around down there – just out of frame to the left. Too far away to shoot, of course.

View at Picasa 29-Jun-2011 20:04, 8.0, 48.0mm, 0.005 sec, ISO 1000

I count eighteen mosquitoes on Grizzly 399′s face. That’s only a few more than what were on my face…

View at Picasa 28-Jun-2011 19:59, NIKON CORPORATION NIKON D3S, 6.7, 850.0mm, 0.006 sec, ISO 2200

I got a rare opportunity to photograph 399 and her cubs at very close range (from the safety of my car) yesterday. I’ll admit that I blew a lot of good shots. Using a long lens at close distance on a moving subject when you’re really excited makes getting sharp photos challenging.  In hindsight I should have switched to a shorter lens, but then I might have wasted a few valuable seconds and missed them altogether. Who knows?

View at Picasa 28-Jun-2011 19:59, NIKON CORPORATION NIKON D3S, 6.7, 850.0mm, 0.006 sec, ISO 1250

These are all practically full-frame shots, slightly cropped to my preferred 4:5 aspect ratio instead of the standard 2:3.

View at Picasa 28-Jun-2011 19:58, NIKON CORPORATION NIKON D3S, 6.7, 850.0mm, 0.002 sec, ISO 12800

No tripod either, which makes getting sharp shots even more difficult. It’s hard to use a tripod when you are shooting from your sunroof and car window.

View at Picasa 28-Jun-2011 18:44, NIKON CORPORATION NIKON D3S, 8.0, 850.0mm, 0.004 sec, ISO 3600