Trogon Photo Tours

November 2021 - In this month's newsletter I discuss wildlife and landscape photography in Slovenia.  The highlight for most wildlife photographers in Slovenia is the European Brown Bear but there are other interesting mammals as well as great landscape photography available in this beautiful country.  To see our article on bird photography in Slovenia, see www.trogontours.net/newsletters/october_2021.  

The largest populations of European Brown Bear are in the Southeast of Slovenia.  In this part of the country there are quite a few blinds that have been set up for bear photography.  For over two hundred years bears have been fed in Slovenia.  The local farmers have put out fruit and corn to supplement the bear's diets.  This has proved to be an effective way to keep them out of the towns and from raiding their farmland.  Of course, it's always exciting photographing a mother bear with cubs and we were treated to a lengthy session with these two.  I got a little bit tight on mom's ears here but it was the most compelling shot otherwise.  The techs for this shot were Canon R5, 100-400 at 400mm 1/200 F8, iso 2000, manual exposure.   Anytime you are photographing in the forest on a sunny day you are going to have some shadows and highlights to deal with.  I was usually underexposing compared to what the meter said to try and keep from completely blowing out areas.  

This is another shot from the same session but taken by participant Ilya Raskin.  Mother bear stood up to have a good look at the large male bear in the background.  Several times we saw two different bears or groups of bears together but we never saw any fights.  I don't have the exact techs for this shot but I do know Ilya was using a Canon 1DX2 and a 100-400.  He zoomed out in order to get both mother and the bear in the background.  One of the interesting things about these blinds is they have a system to vent the smell from the people inside the blind up through a vent which exits much higher than the blind into the forest canopy to keep the bears from being able to smell the people in the blind and perhaps get frightened away.  The blinds all have glass and openings with sleaves to put your lens through.    

Besides the cub sighting, this was the most exciting encounter we had in the bear blinds.  After having photographed several average sized bears, right at the end of the day this massive male came in.  He must have stood close to nine feet tall.  One of the neat things about photographing in these blinds is the bears stand up a lot.  The reason is if they smell or hear another bear coming in they want to try and get a look at the other bear.  The techs for this shot were Canon R5, 100-400 at 312mm 1/80 F6.3, iso 3200, Av mode, evaluative metering -1.0.  I dialed in the negative exposure compensation to deal with the bright background.  There were a lot of smiling faces when we exited the blinds after this encounter.    

We saw a fair number of other mammals on the trip, often on the side of the road.  Roe Deer, Badger, Wild Boar were a few of the sightings.  We saw a number of Red Fox and stopped by the road side to photograph this young fox.  The techs for this shot were Canon R5, 100-400 at 400mm 1/160 F5.6, iso 3200, Av mode, evaluative metering at 0.  A lot of mammal photography in general is done in low light as they are most active early in the morning or around dusk so you either need a camera which handles isos well such as the R5 or a lens such as a F2.8 which lets in a lot of light.

There are also Ibex and Chamois to photograph in the mountains of Central Slovenia.  This Chamois was one of our target species of two of our photographers.  We waited in a blind a few hours one morning and were treated to somewhat distant views of this beautiful wild goat, which fills something of the same niche as our Mountain Goat in the United States.  We were too late in the year for the Ibex as they had moved higher up in the mountains by summer.  Thanks to participant Eloy Castroverde, for sending me this image.  The techs on it were Canon R5, 600F4, 2.0X, 1/640 F8, iso 2000, manual exposure. 

Slovenia has a lot of landscape photography opportunities. This beautiful layered sunrise shot was taken by Natalya Pluzhnikov.  During the two days we are in the mountains during our photo tour you have the choice of doing landscape photography with a local photographer, photograhing birds from hides, photographing owls or trying for Chamois and Ibex (or a combination of those of those choices).  Natalya took with a Canon 5D4 and 24-70 F2.8 lens. 

You can also take beautiful landscape images with your Iphone.  This was taken in the mountains by Debbie Castroverde. 

Here's another beautiful Iphone photo taken by Debbie Castroverde.  This one was taken in the wine country of the Northwest while most of us were doing bird photography.  The winding hillsides filled with vineyards and picturesque buildings are somewhat reminiscent of Tuscany.  It's beautiful, peaceful country for walking. 

In conclusion Slovenia offers excellent bear photography throughout the late spring and summer into September, some interesting other mammals to photograph, great birds and beautiful landscapes, all in a country that is very friendly and safe.