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A short video of the amazing Bear Watching Experience I was lucky to film these past days. What a wonderful time filming the bears and simply enjoying nature and wildlife.
Big thanks to Outdoor Holidays for offering me the chance to be part of this. If you are looking for wild bears in Romania, you should know that thanks to the relatively low level of human intervention, Romania has become home to the largest brown bear population in Europe.
BEAR WATCHING TOURS
I had no idea that we have bear watching tours in Romania. Turns out there are quite a few actually. Luckily I was invited by my friend Andra, the tour guide and Irina from Outdoor Holidays to film the tour for them. I had a blast I tell you that, as it was simply magical. Apparently from what I understood from the tourists we had with us, there are many other places in Europe offering these type of bear watching tours.
Sadly for them, they haven’t seen any bears at all. They decided to try their luck one more time while visiting Brasov. I have a feeling they did enjoyed this tour, since we had lots of bears there. Many thanks to Andra the tour guide. A close friend of mine that loves nature, mountains, climbing, or hiking. Thanks to her I found out a lot of new things about bears and their lifestyle.
I am somehow used to brown bears as I used to see them in the backyard eating apples during my childhood. So I would say that those were my first bear watching tours ( ha ).
PREPARING FOR THE TOUR
Here are just a few things I was told about before the tour, just so you will be prepared.
- Do not use any perfume or deodorant,
- Do not bring any food with you,
- Be prepared to stay chill and quiet for a few hours,
- Make sure you wear dark clothing so the bears won’t be able to spot you,
- Have your camera ready for some exciting shots.
Remember that bears have a really well developed hearing and smell. No wonder you have all the advice above. I can only recommend you a good meal in advance and enjoy the tour. I will not say much about the Romanian brown bears as there is a lot of info available online already. Also the tour guide will answer pretty much to all your questions on the subject.
PHOTO AND VIDEO GEAR
If you do wildlife photography often, then you don’t really need any advice on the subject. On the other side, if you are a beginner, here you have a few useful tips. Usually the tours are in the afternoon as that is when the bears are the most active. If is a cloudy day, you may need a little help from a high ISO if taking photos in order to have a fast enough shutter speed and a good aperture.
The video above was filmed in 4K on a Canon M50 with the 55 – 200mm lens. I think I had the ISO around 640 as the light was a little low. I exported the video as HD just so I can crop the footage and bring the bears even closer than the lens did. Another reason is that afterwards I could also export frames as images, and there was another reason we will talk about in a little.
BE QUIET AND ENJOY THE TOUR
As I was saying earlier, the bear has a really good hearing. For that reason you will have to turn off the shutter sound on your camera. In my case that was only possible if the camera was in AUTO mode. The mode I hate the most as I have no control over the image. Of course if I would take any shots in those conditions I had, the images would look pretty bad. This is the reason why I ended up shooting video and exporting frames later on.
You will also have to disable the focus assistant light in front of your camera as the bear will spot you right away. No… the bear won’t come eat you if that happens, as you will be safe in the shelter. But since they are wild bears not so used to the presence of humans, they get scared and run away. This is also the reason you must wear dark clothing.
Finishing the article, I also recommend you to use a tripod, both for filming or taking photos. Trust me after holding the camera in your hand ready to take the “perfect shot”, you will get tired. A tripod will also help you get sharper images. I also recommend using manual focus especially for video. I don’t know how comfortable you are with that, but remember you will be filming or taking photos through a glass window, so autofocus may play tricks on you.
That’s it from me. I hope you liked the video and in case you do the bear watching tour offered by Outdoor Holidays, have fun and enjoy it as much as I did. Feel free to come back and leave a comment down bellow and let me know how it was for you. I would love to enjoy the photos and videos you managed to take. These animals are simply magnific for me. Plus that they bring back amazing childhood memories since I lived right next to the forest all those years.
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