Alaska trip report

[Jonathan Huyer]

I'm back from a very productive bear photography trip to Alaska. The best part about shooting up there is you can be in the wide open with the bears, and have them completely ignore you. It means you can sit at eye level with them on the riverbanks, and watch them go after the salmon. They are out in large numbers so you have plenty of subjects to choose from, including cubs. I stayed at a lodge called Bear Haven, and each day we went out by float plane to a few different spots. I went early and also visited the iconic Brooks falls, which was great fun.

Some takeaways:
- The R1 is the most brilliant camera ever. It never missed focus, and the eye-detection worked great on bears.
- I left the frame rate at 40 fps, and kept pre-capture on. So I got 60,000 images in 6 days. Was that a problem? Not at all! With C-RAW, it filled up less than two 512 GB cards. The files are only 15 MB each. On Lightroom, I can zip through them very quickly. I'd much rather have an excess of images, than miss a shot.
- You don't need 45 MP. If you have to crop from the R1, just run the file through Topaz and select Upscale. It's really fantastic.
- I left the highlight tone priority on at the highest level. I have to say that it worked well. Never had a blown highlight, even in harsh light. There were no negative issues other than the minimum ISO level of 200 (which didn't bother me).
- The RF 100-300 f/2.8 is a killer lens. I used a monopod with the setup.
- Forget about raincovers. The R1 with a non-expanding zoom is totally water resistant. Just carry a microfiber cloth to clean your viewfinder when needed.
- Patagonia chest waders are the way to go. They have built-in knee pads! I could drop down on the gravel riverbanks and get eye-level shots without an issue.

Here's a few shots...

Brooks Falls. 40 fps and pre-capture for the win.



Also Brooks Falls. This bear would sit relatively still, so I switched to 1/30 sec and gave it a try.



On the river. This is the type of shot that you're really hoping for. Again, 40 fps and pre-capture! Get that paw in the air or forever regret shooting at a slower rate.



Cubs on the riverbank. Cuteness overload.



Let me know if you have any questions about the trip. Thanks for viewing.

[Kayaker72]

Amazing! All for are great for different reasons. The first probably stands out to me the most. Just epic with the eye contact between the bear and salmon.

Thanks for the report, tips, and mini-review. I haven't really pushed the R1 yet, but look forward to the opportunity!

[DavidEccleston]

Great shots as always Jonathan

[Jonathan Huyer]

Thanks! In going through my images, I'm noticing that the R1 is really only delivering 30 fps for action shots, in spite of being set for 40 fps. I am guessing the reduced speed is due to the servo focus requirements. That's just my guess --- does anybody else know why?

[Jayson]

Been fun watching you go through these! Keep them coming.

[Busted Knuckles]

Thanks for sharing the images. I have yet to configure Topaz successfully. I may call you when I get back from my travels.

[Jonathan Huyer]

Thanks for sharing the images. I have yet to configure Topaz successfully. I may call you when I get back from my travels.

Topaz PhotoAI software is pretty fast, so I just try different options and see what works best for each image. The sharpening often comes out too strong (on wildlife, anyway). Sometimes dialing it down a bit helps, but often it doesn't. Denoise is usually good, but it can smudge over fine details. I've had good success with the upscale option, which also adds a bit of noise reduction and sharpening. But if you're shooting 45 MP then you probably don't want to use that. You can also apply more than one option to an image (for example, sharpen and denoise together), and you can click each one on and off quickly to see the effect of each. Bottom line is I'm a fan of the software, and use it pretty much all the time.

Here's an example of where Upscale was really useful. The first image is cropped a little to show the whole scene, but then I wanted to crop it a lot more to draw attention on the fish. Both taken with the Canon R1 at 24 MP.