Trogon Photo Tours



ECUADOR

January 23-February 5, 2019

Amazon Pretour Jan 18-23

Summary: This photo tour visits 4 of the best bird photography lodges in Ecuador, Tandayapa Bird Lodge, Guango, Las Gralarias and Sachatamia.  Tandayapa Bird Lodge is the premier site for multi-flash hummingbird photography on the West side of the Andes.  There are regularly 12-20 species of hummingbirds there.  At Sachatamia many species are easily photographed coming into both fruit and hummingbirds feeders, we visit Angel Paz's site for Cock-of-the Rock, Antpittas and other elusive species.  Guango lodge is great for Sword-billed Hummingbird and multi-flash photography.  When we are in the Quito area we will visit the Antisana Volcano for highland species.  We will be doing multi-flash photography at 3 lodges which makes for stunning hummingbird images.  On this tour you get  more time doing multi-flash than most Ecuador bird photography tours. 

About Ecuador -  Ecuador is one of the richest countries in the world for birds and bird photography.  Over 1,550 species of birds have been recorded in Ecuador, the fourth highest total of any country in the world.  It has many excellent lodges, good roads, a stable government and is reachable from most of North America in 8 hours travel or less.
   
What to expect:  Many of the birds will be close up.  For example with the hummingbird photography I usually use my 300mm lens rather than my 500mm and intermediate to long zoom lenses are ideal for this type of photography (think 70-200 with 1.4 teleconverter, 70-300, 100-400 etc).  At the other locations and for the other birds a minimum of 300mm is recommended.   As far as the multi-flash setup is concerned you can use your own camera with an external flash which will fire all of my slave flashes automatically.  This makes it easy for participants to get lots of excellent hummingbird shots.  Everyone will get at least 10 sessions which last more than an hour each with the multi-flash, this is much more than most photography tours offer. The weather can vary from sunny to rainy but with the multi-flash hummingbird photography we are shooting from covered porches as well as some of the other locations where we are photographing fruit feeding birds coming in to feeders.  The tour is focused on bird photography, but we will be on the lookout for other wildlife, for instance if the Spectacled Bears are showing we can take a day trip to photograph them.  

Maximum Participants: 10 total, including a maximum of 6 photographers.  

Tour Leaders: Charles Gangas and Guilherme Battistuzzo.  Chuck and Guilherme will help you get amazing images.  Chuck is an excellent photographer from Stowe, Vermont who has been on a couple of our previous Ecuador tours.  Guilherme is one of the top birders in South America and a fine photographer. Trogon Photo Tours has been leading photo tours in Ecuador every year since 2007. Chuck and Guilherme will give presentations on photographing birds, using flash and post processing as well as helping you make the best images possible in the field. 

Spectacular species we should be able to photograph include:

Booted Rackettail                                      Andean Cock-of-the-Rock                       
Sword-billed Hummingbird
Long-tailed and Violet-tailed Sylphs
Blue-winged Mountain Tanager
Velvet-purple Coronet
Antpittas (up to 6 species)
Torrent Duck
Toucan Barbet - and many more species of beautiful tanagers and hummingbirds.  We photograph around 30 species of hummingbirds on most of our Ecuador tours - since this one is a little longer we may get a few more. 

Cost: Photographer  $4,800 includes all lodging, meals, transportation within Ecuador, guiding, instruction, $500 single supplement.  Nonphotographer spouse or companion cost is $4,200.  It does not include airfare to and from Quito, Ecuador which is the beginning and ending point of the tour,  It also does not include personal expenses such as tips or drinks. To reserve your spot a deposit of $1,200 is required. The balance is due 90 days prior to the tour. 

Amazon pre tour: Cost of the extension to Sani Lodge in the Ecuadorian Amazon is $2,495 with a $400 single supplement.  It includes flight to and from Coca, 4 nights lodging at Sani Lodge and 1 in Quito, meals, transportation and guiding.  We can also help you plan a few days in the Galapagos at the end of your main Ecuador tour.  This lodge is the best for bird photography in the Ecuadorian Amazon.  You should get great opportunities with Hoatzins, a variety of parrots, owls and many other species.  It's an enchanting location! 

Contact - Email us at nchappell@trogontours.net if you are interested in this tour or call Nate at
281-778-1486