Wildlife Image of the Week for the week ending Oct. 18th, 2013: Anette Mossbacher - Good night sleep tight!
Congratulations Anette!
Polar bear sleeping high above the cliffs. He was about 20-30m up. On this island have been 3 PB's hanging around with a herd of Walruses. One of the PB's has been in bad shape, hungry for sure. Maybe they try to catch a Walrus, but naturally they don't! Have read that when the hunger is to big they give a try. Other PB's I have seen eating sea weed on the beach. All waiting desperate that the ice comes back!. No trash in this image
Only a full moon.
We took turns to photograph this PB up there with the 5 zodiacs. Many have only horizontal images, I have both. Thanks to a little flea I took along this trip from Steve K. I certainly like the vertical better. I took 497 images of this PB, since light was gone from the sun, AF did not pick up the PB very often, my MKIV was at the end the better run with this one. But have a few images with a wider view, as well with the waterline to see how high he was up there!
Conditions to shot, rough sea, all in the boat moving a bit faster, since that kind of image is not out there very often. All trying hard and of course fast moves make a zodiac shake more. My flea told me, take your time and I did, but was hard to have a still hand when the "ground" is shaking than my body shakes too!!!. We spent about 1-2 hours just with him.
Have to add, I took 497 images, just because I wanted the moon to sit where I wanted. I have images the moon is just everywhere. The thing was, get the zodiac driver to drive where I want and hopefully no wave coming to drift us back! Worked for a bout 10 images Not because of the driver, no, because the sea has it's own mind!
This is FF, my LR procedure, WB, a graduate filter, tried to get more out of the moon. PS Fine tuning and ripping my .... off for detail in the PB!! Nada. Struggling with high ISO!
MKIV
ISO whopping 4000 ( everything below was just not going, well some did with the shorter lens 70-200 & 2x )
Lens 300mm f/2,8 & 2x ext. III
f/5.6 1/800
Fee free to rip it apart, but also puzzle it together again
One of my favourite images, cannot get enough of it, the immensity of the landscape and that tiny sleeping bear up there near the Moon! CONGRATULATIONS Anette, this is so well deserved, I see this image going places
Thank you very much everybody for your kind comments and for sure that you took the time to comment. Thanks so much.
Gabriela, this image hangs on two walls already, maybe more walls to come. The contest I won already, this one
Steve, 'arc' would be delighted to live in the snow all year round, but not sure that my mind fancy that thought, but to live there during summer 2-4 month would be fine, but not all winter!!
Have been wondering as it has been cheap in Longyearbyen, well for me coming from expensive Swissyland. Got the impression that Svalbard is tax free! Must google that.
thanks and congrats! So well deserved. When I think of how big a pb is, and that moon! Wow, what a contrast. Thanks for input as to how you shot it, what difficulties you faced. Glad you didn't give up!