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ctfchallenge | all galleries >> Challenge 196 - Uninvited >> Exhibition > Sleepover
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13-OCT-2009 Michael Shealy

Sleepover

Black Forest, CO

60' off the ground, in the top of a Ponderosa pine tree in my "back yard", he chooses for his afternoon snoozes!

Canon EOS 20D ,Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
1/159s f/13.0 at 300.0mm iso800 full exif

other sizes: small medium original auto
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ctfchallenge19-Oct-2009 20:24
Thanks for commenting, Penny, Gerald and Jano. Jano, its a tough situation to extract details from (photographically, that is":^); bright backlight and dark subject. Anyway, you still *can* see his nose and closed eye. I wish I'd thought to make an HDR image. That would have helped a lot in this situation. To give myself a pat on the back, I did think to make the pano of the height of the tree, when all I had was a tele-zoom lens, ha! For more detail on this bear, here's a series of pix of the same guy by some neighbors down the road about 5 miles, taken about a month ago:http://www.flickr.com/photos/29768616@N04/3912021263/
Cheers, -mikey
ctfchallenge19-Oct-2009 02:30
yes, I heard when you see this to uninvite yourself immediately :) My only nit pick is that i wish I could see more of the bear's features... but then in this situation i guess you get what you can get, which in this case is fantastic! jano
ctfchallenge18-Oct-2009 19:14
Thanks for sharing the story, Mikey (and of course for a great shot; I am impressed by the vertical pano). -Gerald
ctfchallenge18-Oct-2009 02:27
goodness. great shot. great story. thanks for all that.
Penny Street
ctfchallenge17-Oct-2009 18:16
Thanks for the comments, folks. This guy was here 3 years ago and tipped over one of our bee hives. He was just a young fellow then and I scared the daylights out of him with my pistol noise (not bullets). He remembered me, I think. That was enough to keep him out of trouble. One shot from the .357 at 8am, and he was up the tree and slept all day. Weird, carrying a gun, even for a day.
Doug, he's making his rounds, I think. Fortunately, they range pretty far. He was just down the road a few miles a week ago. We don't see bears all that much, tho; a lot less than folks that live in the mountains.
Tom, we don't put garbage out until literally minutes before they come to pick it up ":^) a small price for living in the forest. We have more trouble with feral dogs than bears.
Rod - You're aching to get one, a? Me too, ha! I've been so busy lately that I might be able to do it pretty soon. Yaahoo! I would have taken a video of this whole episode, tho I didn't have the 20D with me when he first arrived. The llamas make so much racket that we could only miss his coming if we weren't here. All I grabbed was the pistol.
So, here's where he is, way in the top. You can just see his ear. This is a stitched "panorama" of 5 shots. Same lens @ 70mm, same distance as telephoto shot (a slight crop).

There's a larger version (4,873x926) here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theentiremikey/4009862538/sizes/o/
Thanks again,
Cheers, -mikey
ctfchallenge17-Oct-2009 12:54
Just the concept of a bear in the back yard is scarey enough. Is he a regular? And how far away from your garbage is he? -tv
ctfchallenge17-Oct-2009 07:11
Rod
Nicely done Mikey but I have to wonder if the 7D would have done it better:-)
ctfchallenge17-Oct-2009 03:13
This guy just visiting or is he a regular at your place? They look like big teddy bears but we know otherwise. Great find and great capture. -Doug