Costa Rica Wildlife Shoot - Coribici River

Hi all,

On vacation in Costa Rica and the family and I went on a rafting tour of the Coribici River. I came prepared with the 1DsMIII, 300 f/2.8L IS + 1.4X, 580 EXII + External Battery Pack, and my Gitzo Monopod. After a brief meditation to calm myself as I was more than freaked out that I would drop my rig into the river, I was ready.

Below are photos of me, the first one getting prepared to embark, the second on the raft. The quality of the images of me are from my wife's point and shoot. And these are the LAST images from her point and shoot. She dropped her Samsung into the raft that had 6" of water on the floor and its toast - even after the hair dryer treatment. Luckily I found that out after the river trip.

I will also add two images from the shoot itself. If you would like to see more, I would be happy to post. However, I can only post more upon request to comply with the images posting rules (sorry for posting 4 to begin with). I have about 6 more I can post - at that point I stopped post processing on the laptop and I am heading to the beach.

I have new respect for wildlife shooters and bird shooters in particular! Its hard to capture images from a moving raft with rapidly changing light.

Thanks for looking!

Adam

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OK, here are two images:

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It certainly looks like it was worth the effort. I, for one, would love to see more. That croc is pretty sharp. Well done.

More, please. The croc is huge, and sharp.

Thanks! OK, here are a few more. The first is a Costa Rican Blue Heron. The other guy I have no idea. I was so happy just to get a bird. I have a new found respect for bird shooters. It's hard to capture birds!!!

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Great shots! I love the croc.

very fun! We did two weeks in CR last year, crazy thing is that my wife got one of the most amazing pic's of the trip with her cool pix!
We did 2 weeks with a brendan tour company, I thought at 38 yrs old I was too young for a bus tour as we usally like to just do things our selves but having 2 college educated filed guides as our tour guides was awesome!!!! we saw so much wildlife and they took us to places tourist will never see, I would totaly recomend that company and the bus tour!
Joe

All your shots are great. I am just not sure i would be in those rubber boats with what I see in your pics. Nice set nonetheless.

Excellent shots! The croc capture made me flinch in my seat.

Wow, those are great, thanks for sharing.

Great shots! That last bird looks like a Great Kiskadee, which you can see in south Texas. Not sure if their range includes Costa Rica, but it sure looks like it's at least related!

How often did you use an external flash during day light shots?

jimz66 wrote in post #9273797
All your shots are great. I am just not sure i would be in those rubber boats with what I see in your pics. Nice set nonetheless.

You mean the crocs? Well, you definitely would not have liked the site of this about 50 feet from the raft. Funny part is, I really never felt unsafe. This is a reputable tour company here and the whole family and other families toured with us.

ps gotta run this one through noise ninja when I get home. 1000 iso here.

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Thanks for the comments everyone! I really appreciate it.

As for the flash, the lighting was a nightmare. We hit the river from 10:30 to 12:30 so that's about as harsh as the light can get. But the trees caused the light to change dramatically from minute to minute. One minute bright sun and the next dark shade. Also, much of the wildlife was on land and in the trees. SO, I basically shot in Av mode at f/4 (f/4 was the widest when using the 1.4X on the 300 2.8L and I kept up the ISO to maintain a shutter of at least 1/400 to 1/800 due to the slow moving raft. The flash was set to high speed sync and with the external battery recycle times were almost immediate. So long story short (well, not so short now), I used the flash almost the entire time. For shots where the subject was out of range of the flash, there was no harm. For shots where the boat snuck in and I got close enough for the reach of the flash, the flash helped where it could.

Attached is the last one so I dont use too much bandwith. Again, thanks for the interest!!!

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great shots. Thanks for posting. I take it this was a float trip rather than a river with rapids? There's excellent whitewater rafting in Costa Rica but I wouldn't recommend bringing anything non-waterproof. Our guide fell out on one of the rapids!