Im sure glad that you escaped un-harmed!

Something is fishy. There were 28 minutes from the first 600mm photo and the last posted 600mm photo. That doesn't fit the story. Why didn't you move away in that 28 minutes. 75 yards from the bear? 300mm full fame sensor camera means you were probably 75 feet not yards. The bear in question is about 250lbs, 500lb bears are rare in the park. I know this bear and photographed it last year. Great shots though, just maybe a misleading story.

Holy shit! Best post of the year.

JamesYule wrote:
Something is fishy. There were 28 minutes from the first 600mm photo and the last posted 600mm photo. That doesn't fit the story. Why didn't you move away in that 28 minutes. 75 yards from the bear? 300mm full fame sensor camera means you were probably 75 feet not yards. The bear in question is about 250lbs, 500lb bears are rare in the park. I know this bear and photographed it last year. Great shots though, just maybe a misleading story.


why would anyone mislead a story like this. The photos show the bear knocking over the tripd.
I'm sure he did not go an measure the exact distance of photographer to bear..
250 or 500 lbs...who cares, still a large bear..

know this bear and photographed it last year.

let me guess, the bear called you and said that he's innocent of the whole ordeal, never knocked over the camera..

folks need to lighten up and stop nit picking every single word...

What i'm saying is there is 28 minutes between the 2 photos taken with the 600mm. Which tells me he probably aggravated the bear and provoked the incident. Andrew Kane said in the photo post that "and two of the pictures I got just before ditching the camera" explain that Creative Edge. 28 minutes?

and ur right the other information is just nit pickin

BTW I live 2 1/2 hours from the park I spent 30-40 days a year filming the bears in Yellowstone, They are indeed very easy to distinguish between. I know most all of the bears in that area, including "Porcupine" "The subadult male called roaring" and this bear "Little Miss" a very small female.

James,
I was just messin......
felt like clowning around today...

oh,and I'll be out there in September, any tips on places to go will be greatly appreciated...

Creative,
September is awesome, if you find Berries you will find Bears. I will be in the park Monday - Friday the entire month of Sept and Oct. So send me a message before you leave and i can direct you to the best areas.

Don't get me wrong I love the photos Andrew took.

Wow unbelievable story...I am personally terrified of shooting in the wild because i am always scared something like this would happen to me ;-)

Remarkable story all around. Thanks for sharing. Incredible captures.

Sucks about the tripod. lucky your alive several people have died from griz in YNP recently

Amazing story and pics. Thanks for sharing these.

My guess is that the cameras are set to different times. He shot the closeups with the D4/600 and the shots of the bear with the tripod with the D700/70-300. That explains the time difference.

So did you enjoy the KLONDIKE BAR?


In all seriousness, glad you're okay, with seemingly only some cosmetic damage to your camera, and the big, black, beast of a lens.

Better the tripods legs got chewed on, than yours!

Poff Photo wrote:
At least you have photos to show the insurance company! How often does that happen? Glad you're OK and kept on shooting! This is a perfect example of why I shoot weddings; even the WORST MOB doesn't stack up to this!

I have been to a number of weddings where I would much rather tangle with that bear then the brides mother!

Great shots of your gear getting trampled. I'm sure that Nikon will like these. Would make a great add for them. To bad some one else didn't get the shots of the bear in the fore ground and you backing away and sacrificing 15+k of hardware. That would be one for the wall.

Paul Reams wrote:
My guess is that the cameras are set to different times. He shot the closeups with the D4/600 and the shots of the bear with the tripod with the D700/70-300. That explains the time difference.

you are correct. not to mention that the pictures of the bear knocking the tripod over are cropped heavily.

One of natures survivor stories! Yes, you were very lucky. I had to laugh when you said bear spray. Yeah, right.... They say the bears are getting more aggressive the past few years, sometimes pretending to attack to see if you are scared of them, then they become very aggressive. Glad you got out of there and admire how you kept it together in a bad situation.

kane513 wrote:
Paul Reams wrote:
My guess is that the cameras are set to different times. He shot the closeups with the D4/600 and the shots of the bear with the tripod with the D700/70-300. That explains the time difference.

you are correct. not to mention that the pictures of the bear knocking the tripod over are cropped heavily.


Actually there is a 28min difference between the two D4 shots. Then just a couple minutes between the last D4 shot and the D700 shots. So the earlier poster was right, the story doesn't add up at all. EXIF don't lie (well usually not!!). So the OP must have shot the bear from 6:24 till 6:52 with the D4 before ditching it. Therefore James's concerns are valid.

arbitrage wrote:
kane513 wrote:
Paul Reams wrote:
My guess is that the cameras are set to different times. He shot the closeups with the D4/600 and the shots of the bear with the tripod with the D700/70-300. That explains the time difference.

you are correct. not to mention that the pictures of the bear knocking the tripod over are cropped heavily.


Actually there is a 28min difference between the two D4 shots. Then just a couple minutes between the last D4 shot and the D700 shots. So the earlier poster was right, the story doesn't add up at all. EXIF don't lie (well usually not!!). So the OP must have shot the bear from 6:24 till 6:52 with the D4 before ditching it. Therefore James's concerns are valid.

Subject distance tells a different story. It isn't unusual for Bears to take their time to travel 50 metres, especially if fossicking around looking for insects under logs etc.

The last D4 pic was taken with photographer being 470 metres away from the bear.

What possible motivation would there be for the photographer to have a bear inspect his equipment?

The D700 and the consumer lens attached to it were showing negative values for the subject distance so that must be something not working with distance info from the lens.

I'm a Nikon guy too ...and in this instance the only Canon I'd have been comfortable with would have been a 444 magnum.

thilo wrote:
I was more lucky 3 years ago ;-)