[Leica] Polar Bear Kill

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

Perhaps not as fast as we'd like but they do when you hit the big button
overwhelm with the wealth and depth of detail which feels on a higher level
than what you'd get with a D700 which I'm used to or most other cameras
especially of the non ultra high rez ilk.

I gotta say as impressed as I am seeing these yesterday I was thinking I
should try to get a job at B&H and get a D4 and get myself set up big time.
People will start calling me Sir!  Ten frames a second sixteen megapixels,
six grand. And no acronyms. Maybe I don't need  36.3MP. Oops acronym!

Mark William Rabiner
Photography
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/


> From: Jayanand Govindaraj <jayanand at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
> Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2012 10:56:51 +0530
> To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>, PSM <psm1857 at 
> googlegroups.com>,
> batchofseventyfive <batchofseventyfive at yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [Leica] Polar Bear Kill
> 
> The absolute highlight of the whole trip to the pack ice around
> Spitsbergen was to see and photograph a Polar Bear raid a seal nursery
> chamber successfully. I captured most of the action, but the D800E has
> one big limitation for action - low FPS, and even more than that,
> limited buffer capacity (mainly due to the huge files), and that came
> and bit me in the butt big time. I had purchased this body full aware
> of this limitation, but (very unreasonably) it still irritates! I had
> no time to switch to the D700, which would have effortlessly taken the
> whole sequence. Anyway, here goes - it was a Female Polar Bear with
> two cubs:
> 
> She stalked to figure out the exact location of the chamber:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1712.jp
> g.html
> 
> She just looked at the cubs, and they froze:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1714.jp
> g.html
> 
> She launched the first attack:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1717.jp
> g.html
> 
> She continued trying to breach the chamber, but failed:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1719.jp
> g.html
> 
> Then she tried to collapse the roof of the chamber:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1726.jp
> g.html
> 
> The first attempt failed:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1727.jp
> g.html
> 
> She launched a second attempt:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1728.jp
> g.html
> 
> It succeeded: 
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1730.jp
> g.html
> 
> She disappeared into the nursery:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1733.jp
> g.html
> 
> She reappeared with the spoils, a Ringed Seal pup:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1736.jp
> g.html
> 
> Then the most surprising thing happened, she just grabbed the carcass
> and fled! We were told later that she probably thought that the ship
> was a gigantic animal, hell bent on stealing her kill - after all,
> within the Polar Bear hierarchy, size is paramount. She fled for a few
> kilometres, and all three starting eating in a hurry. By the time we
> caught up with them, the meal was substantially over:
> 
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1746_00
> 1.jpg.html
> 
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1754.jp
> g.html
> 
> Please see LARGE.
> 
> Comments and criticism, as ever, welcome
> 
> Cheers
> Jayanand
> 
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