It took me four days to get this shot. This female grizzly was the most aggressive and the most successful hunter at Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park, Alaska. It might take a male bear 10 or 12 minutes to catch a fish, but the female caught one in no more than 90 seconds. She had four mouths to feed, and the much larger males never dared to challenge her for the best location at the falls. The cubs were always looking in every direction, they were never together in a tight group, and all they wanted to do was have fun. Only in one moment -- after four days -- did all four bears get into the position I wanted. At that moment, as luck would have it, the mother caught a fish. I took this in 1993 with a medium format film camera, the Mamiya RZ 67. The fastest shutter speed was 1/400th of a second. Today I would use at least 1/1600. My aperture was f/8, and the ISO was 100 with Fujichrome Provia slide film. Keep in mind that everything on this camera was manual. I took a meter reading with a hand held meter, I had to crank the film advance manually (I could take a picture about every two seconds), and the focus was manual. I used a tripod to take the heavy weight of the camera and lens off my arms and shoulders.
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