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I use animal subject detection and one of the Wide Area AF modes, usually one of the custom ones so I can resize the box to whatever size I want. Be careful not to use a box that’s too big because if for some reason it doesn’t detect the subject it will pick up whatever is closest to the camera within the box. With bear, there are usually grass, trees, twigs, or varies other things between you and the bear to avoid. The Z8 does a great job with tracking their eyes so you will be able to focus on the composition and watch the background more. As long as your are close enough to the bear, where you can get the bear to fill about 1/6 of the frame you should be good. I see a lot of people post close up portraits of bear but I prefer ones that show a little more of the environment to add interest to the photo, like Larry’s above or even a little more. For a wall hanger, I think having some environment is important.
Very true Woody. The bottom one is an older boar that survived several years of mange. We watched him for over 5 years starting when he was likely a 2-3 year old. Virginia’s wildlife resources division reached out to citizens that had info or photos of bears with mange. When I informed them of this survivor they wanted to come to our place and try to culvert trap him. Apparently there is a genetic anomaly in a few bears that enables them to survive mange. That’s what I was told by the scientists and that’s why they wanted this particular bear. Most, as you mentioned, don’t survive the infection. We simply had too many bears to target one individual for capture. This is an early picture of him…. We called him “monkey face”.
