Trogon Photo Tours

This month's newsletter is about photographing birds on the Tarcoles River in Costa Rica.  It includes images from our January 2018 tour there with settings and thoughts behind the images.

Common Black Hawk photographed January 2018 at Tarcoles River, Costa Rica.  Canon 1DX II, 300F4 1/1250 F5.6, iso 1250, Av Mode, evaluative metering at 0.  This was the first species we photographed, I started out with the 500mm but when these birds flew in close it was too much lens and I was often clipping their wings, so I switched to the 300mm.  Me and a couple of the participants lied on the front bow of the boat to get a lower angle for this shot. 

Bare-throated Tiger Heron, juvenile photographed January 2018 at Tarcoles River, Costa Rica.  Canon 1DX II, 300F4 1/1250 F7.1, iso 1250, Av mode, evaluative metering at +0.3, handheld lying on beach.  When I saw where we would be photographing the next time we stopped the boat I thought the best plan was for those who were interested in getting a low angle to get out of the boat and lie on the beach which several of us did.  At this location the guides provide some food for the local caracaras and tiger herons.  This juvenile tiger heron put on quite a show for us chasing off the juvenile carcaras (one of which you can see in the background). 

Bare-throated Tiger Heron and Common Black Hawk, both juveniles photographed at Tarcoles River, Costa Rica.  Canon 1DX II, 300F4 1/1250 F6.3, iso 1250, Av mode, evaluative metering at +0.3, handheld lying on beach.  A juvenile Common Black Hawk flew down briefly to try and grab a scrap of food, which as you can see upset the Tiger Heron greatly.  Even though wings are clipped on both birds, I still was thrilled to get this action shot. I had chosen the 300F4 rather than the 500F4 for this shoot as I knew we would be close to the birds and I wanted to be able to fit both birds in the shot.  I have now changed to using the Canon 100-400 version II instead of the 300F4 as it focuses closely and is sharper than the Sigma 150-600 which I also own.  When I would go on trips before the decision was always: do I take the 300F4 which is sharper and focuses more closely or do I take the Sigma 150-600 which has the wide zoom but is not as sharp and doesn't focus as closely?  With the Canon 100-400 version II, I am not stuck with that decision anymore as it's just as sharp as the 300F4, focuses closely and has the zoom capabilities.  I lose some distance compared to the 150-600 but I always have my 500F4 and 1.4x teleconverter available if I want reach.  So now it's always the 500F4 and the 100-400 version II that I take. 

Bare-throated Tiger Heron, Canon 1DX II, 300F4 1/1600 F6.3, iso 1250, Av mode, evaluative metering +0.3, handheld lying on the sand.  This was my favorite image of the Tiger Heron prancing around trying to scare off the caracaras.  It was a bright overcast day so I added just a touch of exposure compensation, I wanted some depth of field in case there were 2 birds in the frame so I went with 6.3 and the iso 1250 is the maximum that I think I get very good performance with this camera in terms of noise and image quality. So those are the settings that I used in order to help keep my speed up over 1/1000. 

Yellow-headed Caracara, Canon 1DX II, 300F4 1/1600 F6.3, iso 1250, Av mode, evaluative metering at 0.  At one point a couple of adult caracaras joined the juveniles and landed very close to us on the beach.  I was glad I had a smaller lens in this case because they would have been inside the 500F4's minimum focusing distance.  I changed the exposure to 0 compensation at this point rather than positive as these birds are lighter than the herons.  People don't usually think of caracaras as being beautiful but the adult Yellow-headed's really are.  It was a thrill to be this close to one.  While they are scavengers, caracaras are actually in the same family as falcons, not vultures.   

Mangrove Swallow, Canon 1DX II, 500F4 1/640 F5, iso 1250, Av mode, evaluative metering at -1.3.  Next we headed toward the river mouth in search of Boat-billed Herons in the late afternoon.  We found a couple of cooperative Mangrove Swallows in, naturally, the mangroves.  With the sun now shining some on this largely white bird I dialed in a lot of negative exposure compensation to keep from blowing out the whites against the farily dark green background.  I started off at -0.7 but checking my highlight alerts kept dialing in more negative compensation until I got the exposure correct.  

Boat-billed Heron photographed with a Canon 1DX II, 500F4 1/1000 F4.5, iso 3200, Av mode, evaluative metering at -1.3, handheld from boat.  We eventually found a large number of this species in the mangroves but for the most part they tended to stay obscured behind trees.  Towards the end of the shoot when the light was fading we had a few birds out in the open.  Having reviewed images on the back of my camera, it seemed I was having a hard time making sharp images, probably due partially from fatigue from having taken a lot of shots and partially from the boat moving.  So on this shot I bumped up the iso and dropped the F-stop to make sure I got up to 1/1000.  While the image quality is not perfect at least the bird was reasonably sharp and I managed to catch the beak open and sharp.  I loved the pose on this, with his partially open wing, he kind of reminds me of Count Dracula for some reason.  Notice also the wasp buzzing under his wing. 

In conclusion these boat trips on the Tarcoles River in Costa Rica make for some very exciting photography and we are making it a staple of our Costa Rica photo tours going forward.