After our lovely encounter with a Polar bear the push was on to find more bears to photograph. Our hard working polar guides, Rinie van Meurs and Szymon Niezabitowski continued to put in long hours of route planning and searching. This was rewarded with regular sightings of seals and bears but no bears near enough for a good photography encounter.

Even with long telephoto lenses that allowed identification and tracking of the bears, thermal distortion made it impossible to make decent sharp images at the distances they were at. Regardless it was lovely to watch them going about their lives including a mother bear nursing her twin cubs. As always there was a constant supply of birds for me, not to mention the stunning Arctic landscapes.

Ass always with wildlife photography, being in the environment seeing the animals is the reward with photography opportunities being a bonus. Even distant images like these remind me of the thrill and excitement of being there despite being of little photographic merit.

Polar bear photos with Nikon Z9 and Nikkor Z 800mm f6.3 VR S. Photo of Szymon and Rinie with Nikon Z8 and Nikkor Z 14-30mm f4 S