Trogon Photo Tours

January 2017 - This month's newsletter discusses bird photography in the Pantanal of Brazil.  The Pantanal is first and foremost known for Jaguar photography but the bird photography is spectacular there as well.  This newsletter includes images from our 2016 tour there. 

Chestnut-bellied Guan, Rio Claro Lodge, Brazil, August 2016.  Canon 1DX II, 500F4, 1.4x 1/125 F8, iso 1000, Av mode, exposure compensation at 0, lying on my stomach.  Our first lodge was Rio Claro, where one of the attractions is the number of this species of Guan, Chaco Chachalacas and Bare-faced Curassows which frequent the pastures outside the lodge.  These birds also sometimes wander through the lodge grounds and come to the bird feeders but those feeders are not in a nice setting and it's almost impossible to get a good background there so photographing them in the fields outside the lodge is your best bet.  This was taken just before sunset. 

Black-collared Hawk, Rio Claro Lodge, Brazil, August 2016.  Canon 1DX II, 300F4 1/1600 F5.6, iso 1000, manual exposure, handheld from boat.  The biggest attraction at Rio Claro Lodge are the boat trips where the guide tosses pirahna to several different species including Black-collared and Great Black Hawks, Cocoi Herons, Jabiru and even Ringed and Amazon Kingfishers.  These are good sized birds so a 500 even on a full frame body is usually too much lens, go with a 300 fixed or a zoom.  I use a manual exposure on these shots as the background varies greatly from where the hawks take off to where they are retrieving the fish.  In both this image and the last one I shot both images at one stop down from wide open and at iso 1000 as in both cases there wasn't abundant light and I feel the 1DX II has excellent performance up to about 1000-1250.

Cocoi Heron, Rio Claro Lodge, Brazil, August 2016.  Canon 1DX II, 300F4 1/1600 F6.3, iso 1000, Av mode, manual exposure, handheld from boat.  The herons have a different style of retrieiving the fish, they fly in and on the fly lean over and grab the fish with their beaks.  I used a bit more depth of field here as it's such a large bird and we were fairly close to it. 

White-winged Swallow, Cuiaba River, Brazil, August 2016.  Canon 1DX II, 500F4 1.4x 1/800 F8, Av mode, evaluative metering -1.3,  iso 800,  Gitzo tripod with Wimberley head from boat. This was taken during one of our Jaguar safaris.  When we are not photographing Jaguars there are plenty of birds around as well.  I first started photographing this without the teleconverter, then after I felt I had some sharp images I added the tc as this is a small bird, like our Tree Swallow.  I had to dial in a lot of negative exposure compensation to keep from blowing the whites in the contrasty light.

Chestnut-eared Aracari, Hotel Pantanal Mato Grosso, Brazil, August 2016.  Canon 1DX II, 500F4, 1/2500 F5, iso 1600, Av mode, evaluative metering at 0, handheld.  We didn't stay at this lodge but we always stop there when we are driving between lodges on the Transpantaneira.  They have fruit and corn feeders which attract a nice variety of birds.  But the feeders are in the shade so you often have to deal with harsh shadows and I recommend using fill flash in that area.  I didn't on this shot and it turned out pretty well but I think it would have been even better with a bit of fill flash to throw more light on the bird and less on the background.  I had to use some shadow/highlight adjustment in processing to make the image work. 

Toco Toucan, Pouso Alegre Lodge, Brazil, Canon 1DX II, 500F4 1/640 F5.6, iso 1000, Av mode, evaluative metering +0.7, handheld.  Our next lodge Pouso Alegre is a great place to photograph Toco Toucans as they feed on fruiting trees in the yard.  On this shot I added positive exposure compensation to deal with the bright sky in the background and try to bring out the detail in the blacks. 

Hyacinth Macaw, Pousada Piuval, Brazil.  Canon 1DX II, 500F4 1/2500 F6.3, iso 800, manual exposure, handheld.  This magnificent bird, the largest of the parrots, is common in the Pantanal and we photographed it at 2 of the lodges we stayed at.  There was a nest at Piuval, our last lodge, which provided some nice opportunities.  To get my manual exposure here I metered off the sky and added 1 stop to account for the bright background, the sun was helping here otherwise with that gray cloud background I would have had to add about 2 stops. 



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