How close?

It can be deceptive. In much the way a camera lens can deceive so can your own eyes. On one occasion our guide asked us to guess the distance to a bear we were watching and most people said 30-35 feet. After the bear had moved on he paced out to where the bear had been and it was about 60 feet. The implication is they are even bigger than you might think! I estimate the closest we ever were during the trip was about 20-30 feet though most of the time it was much further.