Trogon Photo Tours

August 2014 - This month's newsletter is about our experience photographing the Scarlet Ibis at Caroni Swamp in Trinidad this past February.  It includes the decisions I made to make the images and has information on the composition and camera settings I chose.

Scarlet Ibis photographed February 2014, Caroni Swamp Trinidad (as are all of the photos in this article).  Canon 5D3 500F4 1.4x 1/1600 F7.1, iso 800, manual exposure, handheld from boat.  Seeing and photographing the Scarlet Ibis coming in to roost in the evening at Caroni Swamp in Trinidad is one of the true spectacles of the bird world.  However, it's not an easy shoot.  On our first day we were blessed with sunny late afternoon skies.  I had spoken with our guide about the best strategy for getting some reasonably close flight shots of the birds.  You are not allowed to park your boat close to the roosting island so you don't disturb them and force them to use a different island.  Our guide thought that if we were the first boat in line then some birds would go low over the water in front of us on their way to the island.  Unfortunately this strategy didn't work out as the birds were coming in to roost from other directions.  We did get some nice images such as this one of large flocks of birds from a distance.  Note that I was using a manual exposure because if you were in aperture priority with evaluative/matrix metering you would get very different exposures against the bright sky versus the dark green trees.

Scarlet Ibis pan blur.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1/13 F6.3, iso 400, aperture priority with evaluative metering at 0.  Our guide suggested we go to the head of one of the creeks which emptied into the lake in an attempt to get closer to some birds.  So we did so but by that time the light was fading fast, after a few futile attempts where we had pushed our isos to 3200, I decided it would be best if we concentrated on pan blur type shots.  The shot I wanted to get was of the Scarlet Ibis against the dark green of the mangroves.  Since I wasn't worried about changes in exposure with photographing against the mangroves and then the sky as I was just concentrating on the lower shots against the mangroves I switched from manual over to aperture priority, that way as the light continued to fade the camera would adjust automatically.  This was my favorite of about 150 images that I took using blur techniques.  I really like the color contrast, the fact that the ibis don't overlap and the soft lines created in the background by panning at the slow shutter speed.  I thought I would end up entering this in some photo contests but for me the spacing of the birds is not quite perfect, in particular the 3 birds in the bottom center are a bit too close together.  We experimented with shutter speeds from around 1/100 down to about 1/5 of a second.  I have found that usually I like the images more with a very low shutter speed as you get almost a bit of a double exposure that is somewhat like what you get with a second curtain synch flash shot.  So that was it for our first evening with the Scarlet Ibis.  We determined to go back the next day now that we knew to go to the head of the creek as soon as birds started coming in to roost so we could get some sharp flight shots. 

Scarlet Ibis, Canon 5D3 500F4 1/1000 F5, iso 1600, handheld manual exposure.  The next afternoon we didn't get the nice sunshine of the previous afternoon, it was an overcast day.  We went straight to the head of the creek at the time the guide thought the ibis would start returning to roost.  By the time we got there they were already streaming past.  With the overcast weather there wasn't as much light so we were pushing our techs to get sharp flight images but we managed to get a few good ones.  This was my best with the birds forming a nice triangle and lining up roughly in the same plane so that even at F5 all 3 were reasonably in focus.  Normally I would want both more shutter speed (to stop these reasonably fast birds and for sharpness considering I was handholding from a boat) and more depth of field (because there were 3 birds) but I didn't really want to go above iso 1600 knowing that I was still going to have to crop the images some.   In any event, the settings worked out well on this shot. 

Scarlet Ibis - Canon 5D3 500F4 1/1000 F5, iso 1600, manual exposure handheld.  Here they are against that bright overcast sky.  Note that the techs for this shot are the exact same as the previous image.  There is a difference of 3 to 4 stops between that bright sky and the dark green mangroves, just not enough time to spin the dial and change your exposure if you are in aperture priority.  Being in manual allows you to photograph against those different backgrounds without changing any settings providing the backgrounds are in the same lighting (for example both sunlit or both in shade).  This isn't a great shot due to the overcast weather, it's for illustration purposes.  

Scarlet Ibis, Canon 5D3 500F4 1/1000 F5, iso 3200, manual exposure, handheld.  A few minutes later the light had really begun to fade so I bumped my iso up to 3200 to compensate.  I thought this image lent itself nicely to a panoramic composition.  Ideally there would be a little more space on top but I didn't  have any left there.  Very soon after this shot we decided to take the boat back to the rookery island to savor the last minutes of light with all of these beautiful birds.

Scarlet Ibis Canon 5D3 500F4 1.4x 1/60 F7.1, iso 2500, manual exposure, IS Mode 1, Gitzo tripod with Wimberley head set up in boat.  Just a simple shot of the birds on the roosting island.  Note that at that very low shutter speed in a boat I had my IS on in Mode 1 to compensate for both the low shutter speed and the fact that the boat might rock up and down or side to side. 

Great Egret with Scarlet Ibis Canon 5D3 500F4 1.4x 1/50 F6.3, iso 3200. manual exposure, IS Mode 1, Gitzo tripod with Wimberley head. With the light almost gone we had moved back to the roosting island back more to savor a few last minutes with the birds rather than the idea of taking more photos we ended up making some nice images.  Since we were the last boat left the guide let us approach the island a bit closer than before.  I realized that this lone egret would make for an excellent composition if I were able to place it into a corner of the frame.  I picked the background which was most attractive and that ended up with the egret in the upper left hand corner around the 1/3 mark.  Note how little shutter speed I had left at this point.  I still stopped down just a touch rather than shooting wide open because I find with a teleconverter that is typically sharper even though I lose a little speed.  Due to image quality concerns I didn't want to go over iso 3200.  While a shot like this needs to be reasonably sharp it doesn't have to be razor sharp as the scene and composition are what make it special.  This turned out to be probably the best image from the 2 days at Caroni Swamp, it has won an editor's pick on www.naturescapes.net and I felt it was a strong enough image to enter it into this year's NANPA photo contest.  It was a great way to end our 2 afternoons of shooting at Caroni Swamp, I am looking forward to going back there next year.