Photos Everyone Took on the Costa Rica Photo Tour

Want to see photos from all the folks on the Costa Rica Photo Tour? Go to http://kathyadamsclark.smugmug.com/

Naturalist Viewpoints -- Discussion and Booksigning

Dec 3rd to benefit Houston Audubon Society. Details

Hill Country Ranch Photo Tour Jan 15-17, 2010

One opening left on my photo tour of a Texas Hill Country ranch Jan 15-17, 2010. Details on my website www.kathyadamsclark.com click Photo Tours

Savegre Mountain Lodge, Costa Rica Photo Tour

Savegre River flows next to Savegre Mountain Lodge. The sound of the water flowing over the boulders is magnificent.

I love photographing the river. The photo on the left is a HDR, or high-dynamic range, image of the river. I took one image overexposed by two stops, one overexposed by one stop, one properly exposed, one underexposed by one stop, and one underexposed by two stops. I changed the shutter speed each time to alter the exposure. The f/stop of 22 remained the same throughout all the exposures.

Then I blended the images using Photomatix. The finished photo shows all the light areas and dark areas along the river properly exposed. HDR lets us capture images that are more like the real scene we experienced with our eyes.



The image to the right is a close-up of the beak of a magnificent hummingbird. I was close to the hummingbird but I've cropped the finished image to magnify mites that hitch a ride on hummingbird beaks.


See the little white dots on the beak of the hummingbird? One is up by the nostrile. The other is midway down the beak on the right side.


These mites are transported from flower to flower on the beak of a hummingbird. I see the mites most often on magnificent hummingbird beaks.

Savegre Mountain Lodge, Costa Rica Photo Tour

Birdwatchers and photographers visit Savegre Mountain Lodge for hummingbirds and the resplendent quetzal. Magnificent creatures to photograph!

The photo at the left is a gray-tailed mountain-gem hummingbird. This lovely colored bird frequents the feeders around the patio area at the lodge.

I photographed this bird at one of those feeders using five flash units to stop the action. The background is natural leaves and flowers that grow along the patio wall.

The next photo to the right is the resplendent quetzal. Our guide, Willy Alfaro, did his job well by finding this bird every morning in the gardens at the lodge. We also found the bird at a nearby residence.

Resplendent quetzals are hard to photograph. The iridescence on their feathers only shows when a flash is used. Without a flash, the birds are bluish with a red belly. With a flash, they are brilliant green with a red belly. Without a flash, the two-foot tail feathers disappear into the surrounding leaves. With a flash, the tails feathers shine!

Resplendent quetzals can also disappear -- an amazing feat for a 14 inch bird with a long, flowing tail. Quetzals are members of the trogon family. All members of the family sit motionless on a horizontal branch high in the trees for long periods of time. Keen eyes are needed to spot them unless they fly and then it's pretty easy to find their perch.

Both photos done with Canon Mark III camera body, 300mm f/4 IS lens with a 1.4 extender, and Canon 550 flash.

Lankaster Gardens, Costa Rica Photo Tour

We left Rancho Naturalista and headed to Cartago and Lankaster Orchid Garden. What a great place to photograph.

We walked through lovely topical gardens filled with palms, blooms, and bromiliads. The attraction was the orchids, though.

Lankaster has a huge orchid greenhouse. We took over the greenhouse and had a wonderful time photographing all the lovely blooms.

I used a reflector to bounce light up on this bloom during the photograph. Phragmipedium orchids, one of the lady slipper group, are pretty complex and the shadows can detract from the beauty of the bloom. The relfector added light from below so the bloom has only a few shadows.

Day 9, Costa Rica Photo Tour

Not all hummingbird photography involves multiple flash units or action. I photographed this white-necked jacobin hummingbird perched on a branch.

The hummingbird fed at one of the feeders and then flew to the branch to rest. The branch had a nice clear area behind it. I watched the hummer return to the perch over and over again while I ate breakfast on our last morning at Rancho Naturalista.

After eating, I took my tripod, camera, and flash over to the branch. I set the camera to aperture priority and used a f/5.6 to soften the background. That gave me a shutter speed around 1/125th or 1/100th. Plenty of speed to stop the movement of the hummingbird. The flash was dialed down by 2/3 of a stop and added nice color to the blue irridescent feathers around the head.

The rest was up to the bird. I watched it look to the right, look to the left, and preen. My favorite shot out of the session is above.