Un-Bear-ably Cute (Shenandoah National Park)
Another weekend, another early morning at Shenandoah National Park. I get up earlier on weekends now than I do during the week!
The trees along Skyline Drive are mostly bare now. On my way out of the park, I was keeping my eyes on the trees hoping to spot on owl or a hawk. As I came around a bend in the road, I looked up and saw two black blobs in a tree. At first I thought they were clumps of leaves or something... after a few seconds I realized they were bear cubs!
I did what I think any other photographer would have done - slammed on the brakes, pulled over, threw on my telephoto lens, and jumped out of the car. By that time, one of the cubs was already out of the tree, and the other was on it's way down. I had been taking landscape photos, so of course my camera settings were all wrong for shooting a black bear against a cloudy morning sky. I made some quick adjustments to ISO and aperture and just started shooting, afraid I would miss the opportunity completely. It wasn't until after the bears were gone that I checked my photos on the preview screen and realized, oh crap, my exposure compensation was set to -1.5 and the photos were almost entirely black.
And here's where I tell you how much I love shooting in RAW, because despite my improper settings I was still able to salvage this shot. If that's not a good reason to shoot RAW, I don't know what is.
Un-Bear-ably Cute (Shenandoah National Park)
Another weekend, another early morning at Shenandoah National Park. I get up earlier on weekends now than I do during the week!
The trees along Skyline Drive are mostly bare now. On my way out of the park, I was keeping my eyes on the trees hoping to spot on owl or a hawk. As I came around a bend in the road, I looked up and saw two black blobs in a tree. At first I thought they were clumps of leaves or something... after a few seconds I realized they were bear cubs!
I did what I think any other photographer would have done - slammed on the brakes, pulled over, threw on my telephoto lens, and jumped out of the car. By that time, one of the cubs was already out of the tree, and the other was on it's way down. I had been taking landscape photos, so of course my camera settings were all wrong for shooting a black bear against a cloudy morning sky. I made some quick adjustments to ISO and aperture and just started shooting, afraid I would miss the opportunity completely. It wasn't until after the bears were gone that I checked my photos on the preview screen and realized, oh crap, my exposure compensation was set to -1.5 and the photos were almost entirely black.
And here's where I tell you how much I love shooting in RAW, because despite my improper settings I was still able to salvage this shot. If that's not a good reason to shoot RAW, I don't know what is.