For many, if not most, a trip to Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska is a once-in-a-lifetime national park bucket list item. You can’t travel to someplace special like Katmai and not return without some sort of pictorial record showing friends, other family members, and coworkers your amazing experience watching those brown bears fish for salmon, some of them with cute little spring cubs in tow.

A brown bear sow and her spring cubs, Katmai National Park and Preserve / Rebecca Latson

Most of us own a smartphone with its built-in camera. Some also wield easy-to-carry point-and-shoot (P&S) cameras, and certainly quite a few of us pack along SLR cameras (cameras that allow for interchangeable lenses) for national park wildlife shots. All these camera types capture good photos of the bears, but a rudimentary understanding of your camera’s settings, plus familiarity with a few camera techniques, will help you achieve great photos of the bears.

SLR Cameras

Telephoto lenses on an SLR camera are key for captivating close-up bear portraits. The longer the focal length (i.e. the farther a telephoto lens can zoom in on the action), the larger the bear’s face appears in your composition (without resorting to cropping a part of the image).

Clarity and sharpness are as important as a telephoto lens. While these bears can and do stand still in the frothing river water, more often than not, there is movement involved as the bear swings its head slowly from side to side while scanning for moving shadows beneath the water, or lunges into, snorkels, or wades through the water in search of that next fish meal.

Sometimes a bear will stand still while looking for salmon at Brooks Falls, Katmai National Park and Preserve / Rebecca Latson

To counteract that incessant motion, you need a “fast” lens, and/or a camera with a fast fps (frames per second) rate.

What Is A “Fast” Lens?

A lens has a range of openings allowing a lot or a little light onto the camera sensor. Measured in f-stops, the smaller the f-stop setting (f1.4, f1.8, f2.8, f4.0), the larger the opening (aperture) between lens and camera. The larger the aperture (f1.4 vs f4), the faster the shutter speed you can use.

What Is FPS And Why Is That Important?

When you press and hold down on that shutter button, you’ll hear a succession of clicks the longer you push down on the button. This is known as the “burst method” of getting a shot. Each click represents the camera’s shutter opening and closing as it captures a photo. Rapid clicks mean the camera is capturing more photos (frames) per second than a slower succession of clicks. A slow fps guarantees there will be some bit of motion blur in the shot. That might look quite effective, depending upon the look you are after, but those faster clicks are more likely to catch and freeze motion, creating a clearer image. A fast FPS rate is somewhere around 20+ frames per second.

How Does A Fast Lens Work With A Camera’s FPS Rate?

Good exposure depends upon the amount of light entering the camera sensor. ISO, shutter speed, and f-stop work in concert to allow the right amount of light onto the sensor. Today’s digital cameras allow immediate feedback for checking the exposure when reviewing the resulting image in your camera’s rear LCD screen, so it’s easy to see if you’ve got the right settings for that perfect shot. Sure, you can use the Auto Mode and let the camera do everything for you, but that will only capture the best lighting and not necessarily freeze the action very clearly.

For optimal lighting and a clear, sharp shot of the bears in motion, try these settings on your SLR:

• Set your camera to a very high ISO. Some photographers at the viewing platforms have said they use ISOs up to 10,000. You might first want to experiment with lower ISOs, from 640 to 3200.
• Open your aperture from f1.4 – f4, depending upon the f-stops your lens allows.
• Set your shutter speed anywhere from 1/250 to higher.

Experiment with these combinations. The key is allowing enough light for a good exposure while also getting the fastest “clicks” when using the burst method.

Details delivered when freezing the motion, Katmai National Park and Preserve / Rebecca Latson

You don’t have to spend your life’s savings for either a fast telephoto lens, a camera with a fast fps, or both. You can rent for just a fraction of the purchase price. One of the most popular online lens rental operations is lensrentals.com, but there are others out there (lensprotogo, cameralensrentals, prophotorental, adoramarentals). Just type “online lens rentals” into your browser’s search field.

To save valuable light and time at the viewing platforms, know how to use your camera and lens combo, and understand those settings before you go out to photograph the bears.

Non-SLR Cameras

Although a little less flexible in terms of settings choices, you can still get excellent fishing bear images with your P&S or smartphone camera. Smartphones and P&S cameras both possess telephoto/zoom settings. Some P&S cameras even allow you to choose your aperture/shutter speed/ISO. Most, if not all P&S cameras have different mode choices, including a wildlife mode, as well as image stabilization, so the chance of a blurry action shot are considerably reduced.

Smartphone cameras do a very nice job of analyzing a scene’s lighting, thus ensuring good exposure for any scenario. Newer-model iPhones (and maybe other smartphone brands) allow you to apply the burst method by holding down on the shutter button icon while simultaneously swiping left. Newer-model brands also allow for slight exposure corrections simply by tapping on the part of your composition that’s too dark or too light. On newer-model iPhones, there’s an exposure setting (that little ruler icon) located at the top left of the phone when you are in Camera Mode. Tap on that icon then swipe left or right to change the exposure. You can go further by tapping on that + icon on the left of the exposure ruler. This icon opens more settings. Just remember, whatever you choose remains there until you return to make more changes or reset everything.

Capture A Video

Use your smartphone’s video option. It’s great for on-the-go action and the quality is very good.

Wildlife Landscape Imagery

Maybe you don’t have a telephoto lens long enough to get a bear close-up, or you brought the wrong lens with you that day. Go ahead and take the picture. You’ll have a landscape photo with bears in it, not only highlighting the beautiful scenery in which those bears live, roam, and eat, but it also highlighting the environment in which those bears live, roam, and eat.

When Is the Best Time For Photographing The Bears?

Anytime you are there. The bears will always be at the water during the salmon migration – especially in July and September. For great lighting, however, mornings and late afternoons – when the sun is at an angle to the landscape - are best, and you will probably see more bears at the river during those times, too.

Should You Pack A Tripod?

Part of that answer depends upon how heavy your telephoto lens is. Those 800mm and 600mm prime lenses are ten-ton bricks, as are some of the 200-600mm zoom lenses. For action wildlife shots, tripods are great at literally taking the weight of that long lens off your hands. You still want to be able to move your camera/lens combo up, down, and pan around at a moment’s notice though, and this is where a gimbal tripod head comes in handy. It’s swinging setup attaching to your tripod base and not only eliminates the weight but also allows quick movement to capture that shot. They aren’t cheap, though, unless you can snag a used version. So, add this to your list of camera gear to rent rather than buy.

If your camera/telephoto lens combination is not too heavy, you should be able to handhold for the shot, using the burst method. Btw, you should use the burst method even if your camera is attached to a gimbal tripod head. Remember, too, while all the other viewing platforms along the Brooks River allow tripod legs to be fully extended, you can only use a tripod in its monopod form (all legs together) for the Brooks Falls platform, due to large crowds at this spot. You might want to use your really big lens and gimbal tripod setup for the other platforms, and a lighter telephoto lens for the Brooks Falls Platform, which is relatively close to the falls. A a 100-400mm focal length works well for great images at that spot.

Ok, you have the camera and lens(es) you wish to use, with or without a tripod. What else do you need?

The burst method uses up memory card space, so bring plenty of extra memory cards. You don’t want to waste time during the photo op going back through each image and deleting some to make room for more shots. When purchasing memory cards, the larger the memory size (64 gb, 128 gb, larger), the more photos you can capture and the less likelihood you will need to switch out cards during a photo shoot.

Bring spare charged camera batteries as well as the battery charger or charger cord. When you start your day, your camera battery (or smartphone) should be fully charged. Fortunately, switching out a used camera battery with a spare charged one is quick and easy as long as a charged battery is within quick reach.

Pack a little rain gear for yourself and your camera. Those days at the river may not always be clear and sunny, even in the summer. If it’s raining, use your lens hood to prevent water droplets spotting up the lens.

No matter what kind of camera or lens you use, it’s hard to take a bad photo of the bears at Katmai National Park and Preserve. Visit this place and you’ll definitely come away with some real keepers to impress family, friends, and colleagues.

Using a 100-400mm zoom lens for close-ups of stakeout spots at Brooks Falls, Katmai National Park and Preserve / Rebecca Latson