Costa Rica birds taken 2 weeks ago

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jhallettbc

jhallettbc

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Thanks to those members who encouraged me to post some photos. We are always our worst critic.
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Yellow-throated toucan
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Lettered aracari
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Green honeycreeper
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Rufous-tailed jacamar
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Keel-billed toucan
 
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Not wishing to hijack the thread, but I had a wonderful time in Costa Rica back in 2016 on an organised photo tour. Our guide was excellent and the opportunities were fantastic. I think Steve also runs trios to Costa Rica, and I would recommend it as a photo destination. It may be a little less safe now, as some criminals have moved into parts of the country following a crackdown in Colombia.
I
 
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Rassie said:
Very nice images. Where in Costa Rica were you? Would you recommend the location?
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We stayed at the La Selva Verde Lodge which I would highly recommend. We hired a private birding guide whose name I got here: Roger Melendez on Facebook, and can certainly recommend him. The second place we stayed (only there a week) was in the Monteverder cloud/rain forest which unfortunately lived up to its name. It was cloudy and rainy the 3 days we were there so saw very few birds. We knew it was the rainier season but the only time we could go.
 
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Thanks for posting these images.

I just came back from a 15 day journey through Costa Rica, a first for me, and found the birdlife overwhelmingly beautiful, and also enjoyed the climate and the green environment a lot.
The extreme rain of the pacific side was not normal, we had a guide that has been doing these trips for 20 yrs, and according to him, normally these heavy rains belong to october, not november.
We had 24 hrs with 190mm of rain.
On the Carribean side things were better.
We had to cancel a boat trip through the mangroves and a visit to Carara national park, but otherwise saw many beautiful birds.
You were lucky to see the Keel-billed Toucan! We saw the other species and the Aracaris, but the Keel-billed is very special.
I am sure I will be returning there, or perhaps Ecuador, in future.

I had the Sony A1+200-600G myself, but will take a f4 lens, or even a f2.8 lens, next time though. The images came out fine, but the iso climbed very fast all of the time. Noise reduction is very good nowadays, but a very bright lens would be better.
 
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ChrisM said:
Thanks for posting these images.

I just came back from a 15 day journey through Costa Rica, a first for me, and found the birdlife overwhelmingly beautiful, and also enjoyed the climate and the green environment a lot.
The extreme rain of the pacific side was not normal, we had a guide that has been doing these trips for 20 yrs, and according to him, normally these heavy rains belong to october, not november.
We had 24 hrs with 190mm of rain.
On the Carribean side things were better.
We had to cancel a boat trip through the mangroves and a visit to Carara national park, but otherwise saw many beautiful birds.
You were lucky to see the Keel-billed Toucan! We saw the other species and the Aracaris, but the Keel-billed is very special.
I am sure I will be returning there, or perhaps Ecuador, in future.

I had the Sony A1+200-600G myself, but will take a f4 lens, or even a f2.8 lens, next time though. The images came out fine, but the iso climbed very fast all of the time. Noise reduction is very good nowadays, but a very bright lens would be better.
Click to expand...
We were also told the extreme rain was not normal for November. The same as you on the east coast, we actually had no rain for 3 days.
I felt very lucky to see both toucans. Let's face it, all the birds, since they were all new to me.
I used the Plena 135 1.8 for my hummingbird photos. It would not have been possible otherwise to have a high shutter speed and a relatively low ISO.
 
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Thanks for posting. Your images are WOW! I have Costa Rica scheduled. Not specifically a photo tour so I was thinking the Z400 f/4.5 + 1.4TC would work. But I see your high ISOs despite 1/100 shutter. Were you using a tripod or simply benefitting from Nikon's 6-stop VR?
 
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cchuck said:
Thanks for posting. Your images are WOW! I have Costa Rica scheduled. Not specifically a photo tour so I was thinking the Z400 f/4.5 + 1.4TC would work. But I see your high ISOs despite 1/100 shutter. Were you using a tripod or simply benefitting from Nikon's 6-stop VR?
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Thanks for the kudos! No tripod. All hand held. The ones of the hummingbirds illuminated taken on a very dark overcast day still got to ISO 9000 because the shutter speed had to be 3200/sec.
 
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nmerc_photos said:
Lovely images. On my bucket list for 2025.

Glad to see the 600PF putting in work in an environment most would consider "difficult low light"!
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Difficult low light was true a lot of the time. Here is the most difficult situation, one taken in the rain on a dark forest trail that amazed me by showing what is capable with a Z9 and LRC. ISO 18,000
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jhallettbc said:
We stayed at the La Selva Verde Lodge which I would highly recommend. We hired a private birding guide whose name I got here: Roger Melendez on Facebook, and can certainly recommend him. The second place we stayed (only there a week) was in the Monteverder cloud/rain forest which unfortunately lived up to its name. It was cloudy and rainy the 3 days we were there so saw very few birds. We knew it was the rainier season but the only time we could go.
Click to expand...
I also had a tour which stayed at the Selva Verde lodge, with the same guide Roger Melendez wonderful person, excellent guide !
 
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