This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
The best area to find black bears Yellowstone, at least in the spring, is between Tower Junction and Tower Falls. There is a small lake along the road in that area called Rainy Lake. Next to the lake is a large meadow which bears use for grazing. This young bear was in the meadow a lot last May. Pay special attention to the stretch between the lake and Calcite Springs Overlook.
About the only negative to wildlife photography in Yellowstone is having to go through all your photos to separate the chaff from the wheat. I shoot about 1,000 images a day and there is no time to go through them until I get home. Going through 14,000 images is a daunting task. I’ve started with black bears and I still have 1,800 black bear photos to delete or save.
This photo was taken at sunset at Phantom Lake using a 500mm lens and 1.4 tele-extender. When shooting early and late in the day the delete rate goes up because it gets harder to stop subject movement. This image was shot at 125th of a second at ISO 2,000. I don’t like raising the ISO much above 800 but I had to go to 2000 to make sure I at least got some sharp photos of the animal standing still and, hopefully, moving as well.
