Sloth Bears Rumble at Zoo Miami

Zoo Miami Sloth Bears Rumble

What a cool moment to see in person. It was quick. It was aggressive. It was out of nowhere. I’d say right time right place for me. Luckily I had my 70-200mm on my camera at the time. I quickly switched to single point continuous autofocus, and followed the bears the best I could. I made several exposures in aperture priority mode (ISO 400 f/4 1/640th @ 185mm) with matrix metering. Modern DSLR cameras perform very well these days and it pretty much nailed the exposure, even with the hard shadow and highlight. I pulled the highlights back in Lightroom to adjust a little bit, added some contrast, and left it to the camera to process it in Vivid (Nikon).

Overall, I’m happy with the moments I captured. Could I have tweaked the exposure or color or whatever? Yes, but I would have missed the moment. Nonetheless, I think I got something really cool, and I don’t know the next time I will be around Sloth Bears rumbling anytime soon.

My tip for the zoo: Be ready, pick an easy setting to make minor adjustments, capture what you can, and most of all have fun!