Costa Rica - Osa Peninsula

How stoked were you to find the turtles running for the water?! Great series; looks like a place to add to my 'to do' list

Actually it was part of two turtle releases that I got to photograph, but still amazing either way.

You have some wonderful photos here! Can you give some insight on how your lens/camera choices played out and what you would change for next time? It looks like you have a number of photos taken on a 7D2 at 400mm so I imagine there was some need for LONG lenses for some of the birds?

I am wondering if a 100-400 II and 500 II/1.4x (so 700mm) would be the ideal setup or if the light levels are so low that I should try to bring a shorter but faster "big" lens.

Thanks!

-Mark

Lowside67 wrote in post #18584530
You have some wonderful photos here! Can you give some insight on how your lens/camera choices played out and what you would change for next time? It looks like you have a number of photos taken on a 7D2 at 400mm so I imagine there was some need for LONG lenses for some of the birds?

I am wondering if a 100-400 II and 500 II/1.4x (so 700mm) would be the ideal setup or if the light levels are so low that I should try to bring a shorter but faster "big" lens.

Thanks!

-Mark

Thanks for the comments. The 7D2 & 100-400 II combo worked great, it's my go to for wildlife photos. While most of the shots were at 400mm I didn't feel as if I needed too much more reach. Most of the photos are mildly cropped. Also, the wildlife came very close, even the birds. So for some shots I was only in 275-350 range.

I also used fill flash for a good number of photos. None of this is scientific, but I think it was better to throw some light on the subjects rather than to just get a quicker shutter speed by using a faster lens or wider aperture. The colors that I got were very good with just throwing a little flash into the shot. This was my first time using flash for wildlife. Honestly, I wouldn't change anything, except using the 7D3 when it comes out.