I returned yesterday from a week in Guanacaste Province, where I spent a week in an all inclusive hotel on the Colebra Bay. This was my second time at such a hotel in that area.
It was a brutal 39 Celsius when we arrived, and for the rest of the week the daily high hovered at 35C or higher. These conditions played absolute havoc with the lack of sharpness in many of my images. @Steve's video about heat diffraction being the #1 killer of sharpness came just at the right time. By the time I watched the video I was about ready to tear my hair out trying to figure out what was going wrong. No matter what focus mode I used, nothing made a difference. Many images were just soft. In my experience there under those conditions, it's best to shoot from sunrise for an hour and a half, two hours tops, before the birds disappear and the images become soft.
I was using the Z8 with 500mm PF F/5.6 lens with a TC-14E III fitted most of the time, while my wife was on her Z50 with the new Nikon Z 28-400mm lens. I have not delved into this very deeply, but my initial observations are that the 28-400mm lens on the Z50 suffered less heat distortion than my 700mm combo on the Z8. That also confirms what @Steve mentions in the video, the fact that longer lenses suffer these effects worse than shorter ones. Perhaps I should have removed the teleconverter and rather shot in DX mode during those times.
We went on two excursions with a local guide who came recommended by one of our UK-based BCG friends. This guy was a gem, very knowledgeable on local wildlife, and he had arrangements with local places where he took us for wildlife photography. The first excursion was to Palo Verde National Park where we went on a boat cruise up the river. Between our guide and the boat captain, they found all the wildlife that my wife and I missed. Eagle eyes for sure. After the boat cruise we went driving around the adjacent wetlands. We came back with thousands of images of very interesting birds and animals, a number of which filled parts of my bucket list. What was nice about this excursion was that it was only my wife and myself in the vehicle with the guide, and it was only the three of us on the boat, together with the boat captain.
A few days later we went with the same guide again. This time he took us inland into the mountains and rain forests. We went to someone's private land next to Tenorio National Park in Alajuela Province, where we spent time on the slope of the mountain on the edge of the forest where we shot images of a wide variety of hummingbirds. We also saw a couple of toucans and other birds. Again it was only the three of us there. From there we went to a different location where we took a walk into the rainforest (and yes, it rained), and we photographed sloths in the trees, Blue Jeans poison dart frogs, and Eyelash Pit Vipers.
Weather conditions on the other side of the continental divide were totally different to the Guanacaste province on the Pacific coast. Guanacaste was mostly dry, brown and very hot. It was only inside the resort and along the river banks that vegetation was green. East of the continental divide was easily 15+ Celsius cooler, and everything was lush and green. Each area had lots of birds, some of them common to both areas, and some unique to each area.
April is the hottest month in that country, but also the driest with least rain. In conclusion, we had a great time and got some great images. I'm not sure I would do Guanacaste again in April - it was just too hot. Perhaps in December, when the daily average temperature is all of 2C lower
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For those (like me) who can't afford the week in the OSA peninsula offered by Steve, I think there is also value in spending a week or so at different lodges in the more central parts of the country where specific lodges offer opportunities for shooting different types of wildlife. I still have the Resplendent Quetzal on my bucket list.
I'm now going to be busy for the next couple of months editing and posting some of those images. Look out for them in the Wildlife forum here on BCG.
It was a brutal 39 Celsius when we arrived, and for the rest of the week the daily high hovered at 35C or higher. These conditions played absolute havoc with the lack of sharpness in many of my images. @Steve's video about heat diffraction being the #1 killer of sharpness came just at the right time. By the time I watched the video I was about ready to tear my hair out trying to figure out what was going wrong. No matter what focus mode I used, nothing made a difference. Many images were just soft. In my experience there under those conditions, it's best to shoot from sunrise for an hour and a half, two hours tops, before the birds disappear and the images become soft.
I was using the Z8 with 500mm PF F/5.6 lens with a TC-14E III fitted most of the time, while my wife was on her Z50 with the new Nikon Z 28-400mm lens. I have not delved into this very deeply, but my initial observations are that the 28-400mm lens on the Z50 suffered less heat distortion than my 700mm combo on the Z8. That also confirms what @Steve mentions in the video, the fact that longer lenses suffer these effects worse than shorter ones. Perhaps I should have removed the teleconverter and rather shot in DX mode during those times.
We went on two excursions with a local guide who came recommended by one of our UK-based BCG friends. This guy was a gem, very knowledgeable on local wildlife, and he had arrangements with local places where he took us for wildlife photography. The first excursion was to Palo Verde National Park where we went on a boat cruise up the river. Between our guide and the boat captain, they found all the wildlife that my wife and I missed. Eagle eyes for sure. After the boat cruise we went driving around the adjacent wetlands. We came back with thousands of images of very interesting birds and animals, a number of which filled parts of my bucket list. What was nice about this excursion was that it was only my wife and myself in the vehicle with the guide, and it was only the three of us on the boat, together with the boat captain.
A few days later we went with the same guide again. This time he took us inland into the mountains and rain forests. We went to someone's private land next to Tenorio National Park in Alajuela Province, where we spent time on the slope of the mountain on the edge of the forest where we shot images of a wide variety of hummingbirds. We also saw a couple of toucans and other birds. Again it was only the three of us there. From there we went to a different location where we took a walk into the rainforest (and yes, it rained), and we photographed sloths in the trees, Blue Jeans poison dart frogs, and Eyelash Pit Vipers.
Weather conditions on the other side of the continental divide were totally different to the Guanacaste province on the Pacific coast. Guanacaste was mostly dry, brown and very hot. It was only inside the resort and along the river banks that vegetation was green. East of the continental divide was easily 15+ Celsius cooler, and everything was lush and green. Each area had lots of birds, some of them common to both areas, and some unique to each area.
April is the hottest month in that country, but also the driest with least rain. In conclusion, we had a great time and got some great images. I'm not sure I would do Guanacaste again in April - it was just too hot. Perhaps in December, when the daily average temperature is all of 2C lower
.For those (like me) who can't afford the week in the OSA peninsula offered by Steve, I think there is also value in spending a week or so at different lodges in the more central parts of the country where specific lodges offer opportunities for shooting different types of wildlife. I still have the Resplendent Quetzal on my bucket list.
I'm now going to be busy for the next couple of months editing and posting some of those images. Look out for them in the Wildlife forum here on BCG.
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