How often do you get to photograph bears this close in the wild? Answer: once in 83 years!
These Arctic photos were taken from an exploratory/ research vessel in and around Svalbard, Norway [a.k.a. Spitzbergen] in late summer 2018.
OK, now you on our right, raise your head just a little.... Bears #1712
I do not know if they are husband and wife, mother and daughter...
The Zodiak is a small fabric boat used to both explore the coastline and to make landings for explorations on foot. This one is only a fraction of the way to the glacier.
Now our Zodiak is closer to the glacier. We cannot draw too close since a "calving" ice break-off could create a wave that would endanger our craft. f/8 1/1600 170mm ISO 400
Arctic View 3185; notice the Sun is low and to our right. As it sets our lighting changes rapidly. The Sun in early September only "set" for 2-3 hours each day, so roughly 22-23 hours of daylight.
Technical info: 70mm lens for scope, 1/2500 sec to prevent motion blur, f/10 to increase depth of field, ISO 400 to balance the exposure. My Nikon D850 and D750 can shoot quite high ISO with no noticeable increase in digital "noise."
If you were a painter, what shades of blue would you need? Note the ice in the water ... and we in a small inflatable boat!
Some chunks of floating ice were larger than others. They are called "icebergs" at about 15 feet or larger.
Our guide piloting the Zodiak said that this 'berg broke off from sea iced at the bottom of the sea, hence the clean, jade-like surface. In another boat, the guide said the iceberg had rolled over. I cannot say as I was looking the other way. But I heard it "whoosh" and we all felt the "tidal" wave! Closer and we could be capsized.
An amazing sight!! This 'berg broke off from the bottom of the fjord. See our essay on the color of icebergs.
Image #3368 (that info is for me). Taken with 300Mm lens, f/5.6 1/1250 ISO 400. Looks like jade to me! [all the glacier? iceberg shots were taken with a Nikon D850 camera and a Nikon 70-300mm lens. (Some folks want to know such things)
95mm focal length, 1/1600 sec; the aperture of f/4.5 was supposed to blur the background (I thought, before the shot). It did, a bit, but I find the background a distraction. But the 'berg looks like cut glass! A very rare sight.
f/4.8 1/3200 to stop small boat motion, focal length 135mm Nikon D850; for me: image #3449.
The Sun is low; could not get a sunlit view of floating ice as we are in the shadow of a mountain to our right.
On another day, our Zodiak took us to the edge of a mountainous terrain. This guy could not care less.