Finale to Costa Rica

Agouti

As I sit here at my computer, writing the final blog about Costa Rica, I am enjoying fresh pineapple slices from a whole pineapple that came from Costa Rica.  Almost as good as the fresh pineapple that we had in Costa Rica.  In Costa Rica the pineapple we had came right out of the fields, while the one that I ate this morning had a travel up to the states and then into the supermarket where it was bought.

For a final full day in Costa Rica, waking up early, packing the bags and then going out and photographing before breakfast to capture the final images of Bosque De Paz.

Black Guan

Yellow-thighed Finch

Chestnut-naped Finch

The View in Front of the Dining Hall at Bosque De Paz

Waterfall at the Bridge

The Dining Hall, the white sheet is used at night to attract insects and moths

The Cloud Forest

Boarding the bus, we traveled to Greg's hometown of Zarcero where the St. Raphael  church is very beautiful and the park in front of it has many toparairy animals, which is great for photography.  Greg also has friends that produce organic coffee, but they were close today, however, the grocery store in the town did carry their coffee and I was able to pick up a couple of bags to bring home.

Toparairy Monkeys

The group in the park in front of St. Raphael church

St. Raphael church in the fog

Altar of St. Raphael's Church

Statue in St. Raphael's Church

We then traveled back to San Jose and the hotel.  Because our rooms were not quite ready.  I explored the gardens again and took more photographs.  After the rooms were ready, we all met for lunch.  During lunch, there was a very heavy severe thunderstorm for a good period of time.

The Garden

Prior to our final dinner, we were going to meet Greg and hopefully out in the garden be able to photograph some tree frogs.  I noticed a beautiful sunset and photographed it through the a window on the third floor of the hotel.  Meeting in the lobby we walked out with our flashlights and looking around the water areas for frogs.  We did find Costa Rican leopard frogs, a giant toad and a yellow eyed tree frog all available for photography.

Sunset over San Jose

Giant Toad, it will eat everything and was imported from Brazil

Costa Rican Species of Leopard Frog

Yellow Tree frog-eyed

Part of the enjoyment of this trip was the great camaraderie that everybody developed.  A number of times all five of us or six would sit around a table with a drink in hand and discuss trivial matters.  Such as what certain things are called in different places in the world and in the states such as what is Coke known as.  It could be soda, soda water, tonic soft drink and just plain Coke.  What made it interesting is we had two people from Scotland, one from Chicago, one from Washington state and me from Massachusetts.  In this way friendships were were made.

Everybody was sad and leaving Costa Rica and everybody also wanted to stay.  We were all planning on figuring out how to return in the coming year.

“Pura Vida"

Flora, Fauna and Macro at Bosque de Paz

Black Guan

Well, sadly, it is our last full day at Bosque De Paz.  We spent the day photographing various flora and fauna and the landscape.  We also had a great time with macro photography, both during the day and at night.  Another thing that makes Bousquet De Paz so great, is the employees. Not only do they do their job, but are always telling us about new birds that they have found so we could see them, and they would also bring subjects for us to photograph.

Yellow Ladyslipper

The River and Falls at Bosque de Paz

Aloe Flowers from Below

Coatimundi 

Black Phoebe

Now how we learnt how to do it.  Because Costa Rica is filled with jungles.  In these areas the light can be dim, partly dark and partly dark to to the sun filtering through the leaves of the trees, which makes the use of flash very helpful.  We used our flash on the camera or on a flash bracket attached to the camera plus a Better Beamer and varied the intensity of the light to give us fill flash and not overpower the natural light.

Normally at home for macro work.  I use dual flashes attached to the lens and they are controlled by a controller on the hot shoe.  Greg taught us how to use off-camera flash, so we could vary the direction the light illuminated the subject.  To accomplish this, methodology included a flash cord, remote flash controllers or if you have a Nikon with a built-in flash, it can be used as a controller for your handheld flash.  Also, a flash the fusion is helpful.  During the day you want to use the flash only as a fill flash where at night the flash power should be  on full  power as it will be the only  illumination.  Also at night, a headlight or LED torch is very useful along with an assistant.  The assistant is used to position the flash.  We used our torches to locate subjects for us to photograph and light up the subject, so we could focus on the subject.  Depending on the subject and which lenses we had, people either utilized a macro lens, a zoom lens or a zoom lens with a Canon 500 dual lens macro filter.  Not only did we use our torches to find subjects, but it also helped us walking on the dark paths.

Now on to pictures!

Caterpillar 

Fly

Katydid

Caterpillar 

Katydid Moulting

Back-lit Cricket

Walking Stick

Owl Moth

Giant Silk Moth

Brown Walking Stick

Spider

Spider

Glass Tree Frog

Hummingbirds

For the next two days, we mainly concentrated with multi--flash hummingbirds set ups.  The first day took place at Bosque De Paz and the second day at Catarata Del Toro.  Bosque has a large covered open air platform, where Greg and José set up the multiflash stations.  We all took turns on a rotational basis for a half hour of time each session.  In between we could photograph the landscape or do macro photography.  Except for a break for lunch.  These sessions continued all day.

Violet Saberwing

Green Hermit

Green Hermit

 Purple-throated Mountain-gem

Green Hermit and Green-Crowned Brilliant

Green-Crowned Brilliant and Wasp

Catarata Del Toro is down the road and is noted for its impressive waterfall that drops 300 feet into an old extinct volcanic caldera.  Catarata Del Toro has a large open-air restaurant where we had permission to place our Hummingbird set setups taking over the left side of the restaurant.  Again, we photographed the hummingbirds, including species that do not come to the set ups at Bosque, on rotational basis.  In between we were able to photograph the landscape, and I also spent time photographing hummingbirds at a different feeder catching the hummingbirds sitting on branches four different appearances.  We also experimented with different backgrounds, including black and white.

Green-crowned Brilliant

Silhouette

Green Hermit

Green-crowned Brilliant

Black-bellied Hummingbird

Black-bellied Hummingbird

Black-bellied Hummingbird

Green-Violetear

In between our rotations we ate a great lunch.  During the afternoon, there was a rainstorm which allowed for different landscape photography.

Panorama At the Waterfall

The Waterfall

Finishing the day, we turn to Bosque De Paz for another great supper.  After talking over the day's experiences around the supper table, we returned to our rooms to get ready for another day of landscape and macro photography.

Using the coupon code mborn you will receive a 15% discount on any or all of the Topaz plug-ins.



Help Support my blog by purchasing from Amazon. Clicking on this link and utilizing the link does not cost you anything.
BUY FROM AMAZON