September 2011

September is vacation time and this year was not different. I would have preferred to change my vacation time to June but because of the switch of our ERP system in my company I had to postpone it to September. We went to Canada ( British Columbia to be more precise ) again. 3 weeks in a RV. This year we also took part on a Grizzly tour to Bute inlet. We saw Grizzlies! So why no shot of a Grizzly for this months picture of the month. The answer is simple. The image above was better.

It all started with a new camera. I bought a Fuji Finepix X100 just before we left for Canada. What a camera! Finally I got the digital version of my Contax T2. Ok it´s bigger and it is not full frame but otherwise this is as good as it gets. I loved the Contax T2. It was an amazing camera. A very compact camera with a built in 2.8/38mm Zeiss T* lens. Small, quiet - just perfect. The Fuji Finepix X100 is very similar. While more complex and not as compact it is even quieter! In fact it is noiseless. The Contax shutter was very quiet as well but after an exposure the winder set in to transport the film. The Fuji makes no almost no noise at all and it is more flexible as it has an even brighter lens ( f2.0 ) and AUTO-ISO up to 3200ASA. But most important the quality of the file is amazing and equals what I get from my Canon 5D. High ISO is even 1 stop better!Of course there is some quirks. Fuji never was able to provide a clear menu and AF could be faster but I think nobody will confuse it with an action camera. It is a small Leica/Contax like camera with a great viewfinder and a very good lens and sensor.

When I got the camera I had travelling light and enviromental portraits in mind. Before the travel I visit Harald in the Museum. I wanted to take some portraits in a great location and Harald is the perfect model. This day he had troubles to put on his serious portrait face but with a little patience I ws able to get some very nice images. Strange thing is: I shot in JPEG. This was because when we played with the camera during lunch we put on it´s panorama mode. I took me a couple of minutes to get it back into single frame mode but that the RAW setting was changes to JPEG. Right after the last portrait I found out about my mistake. Damn Fuji menus. But every failure is a chance as well. When looking at the files at home a liked composure and Bokeh but I found the files to be rather flat. Low on contrast and especially the black level was to low. I played arounf in Lightroom and found the Bleach Bypass Effect. First the image was overexposed but bringing exposure back the result was very special. Strange thing is I was not able to recreate this effect on a RAW file. I don´t know why but I like it. So every mistake is a chance as well.

Back to the bears. I always wanted to see Grizzly bears in the wild. I thought the only real option would be to go to Katmai NP Alaska but of course there are also some spots in British Columbia / Canada. This year we planned to go on such a trip but as we hate to plan the whole trip in advance and wanted to remain flexible we simply went there and directly to the office to ask whether there are available seats on the boat. Threre were 2 seats remaining. We took them.

The weather on this years vacaton wasn´t that nice at all. Cold and wet on lot´s of the days but on this day the weather was magical. A clear, cool and bright morning when we entered the boat. It took as almost 2 hours to get there by boat and another 15 minutes by tour bus. Bute Inlet is a big Fjord. It is 80km long and our location was right in the middle. We went to special plattforms by bus. The first half on hour there was nothing. Beautiful small river full of salmon ( dead and alive ) in wonderful light but no bears. We changed plattforms but still nothing. First doubts if it was a good decision to go on the trip. But than they ordered us back to the first platform. They guides have found a bear. At first the bear was nothing more than a slowly moving point far far away. But through the lens it was clearly a Grizzly feeding on the death salmon that lay on the river banks. After a while the bear diappeared behind a big log and was out of sight for us. Waiting game again for the bear to come back into sight. Our captain came up to our platform and asked us to move down and sit on a log beside the river to have a better view on the bear. Now we were sitting on one side of a small river ( about 6 meters wide and 1m deep ) while on the other a Grizzly bear was approaching us. What an experience. To see a bear on the TV is one thing. To see it in a Zoo is another thing but see it in the wild with nothing inbetween but a small river is something completely different. The bear was aware of us. Soemtimes he looked straight in our cameras. Then he passed us slowly and moved away. We followed our guides to the second plattform but the bear decided to turn back again and moved away from us.

We went into the car and drove to another plattform. Right on the way somebody shouted "bear". We stopped. There was another bear. Bigger than the first one right inside the river. We moved out of the bus and the guides asked us to stay in a group. We were placed on the edge of the river. The bear moved towards us and got a death salmon. Took it to the other side and at gorged it. Sometimes he looked up and straight in our cameras. There was the sound of shutters out of all the cameras of our group, mostly Nikon D300, every time the bear moved a little. Thousands of images were taken within minutes. And then the bear passed us by and went away. It was as close as 6 meters! What a moment! On the way back to our boat everybody was smiling. Faces you see when people leave a great movie. Everbody was bewitched. What a wonderful trip. On the way back we crossed Steller Sea Lions and Pacific Dolphins. The first group of dolphins contained about 100 animals. The second was about 40. The played with us and the boat. It was amazing. What a trip! Bute Inlet is a magical place. There is a power station project at the moment. And this project is endagers the beauty and the wildlife in this wonderful place. I really hope that they will dismiss this power station project because such places need to be protected. If you ever visit Campell River on Vancouver Island during the salmon season get a ride! I sure you will not regret it.

setting main shot: Fuji Finepix X100: A-Mode, 1/100@f2.8 and 200ASA, Bleach Bypass Effect in LR, cropped