Costa Rica

 Recently I traveled to Costa Rica and I have to say it was amazing!  I spent 3 days in the mountains of Monte Verde, 3 days in Arenal near the volcano and 3 days by the beaches in Guanacaste.  When you are there you will notice Costa Rica is known for its coffee, which I have to say was very very strong! I was way more interested in the animals, plants and views I would be able to photograph.      " The country is home to over 9000 species of flowering plants, over 600 species of butterflies, more than 200 different mammals as well as prehistoric looking reptiles and boldly colored amphibians." (Bartley, Glenn.photo Itinerary- Making the most of Costa Rica: Nature Photographers Online Magazine, 2010 http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles0706/gb0706-1.html)

Fig tree in rainforest

If you are interested in photographing birds, monkeys and beautiful rainforests, Costa Rica is perfect for you!  While vacationing in Costa Rica I felt a main focus on most tours was the birds!!

They have over 875 different species!

Birds

 My advice for shooting here is to definitely bring a long lens! Either if your shooting with a point and shoot or a DSLR, make sure you have a large enough zoom to catch those small animals that hide in the trees.  I would also recommend bringing along a macro lens, which is my favorite, to get those small details. 

Hummingbird nest with eggs (macro lens)

 Remember Costa Rica has a lot of rainforests, so I would recommend bringing a rain cover for your backpack, since you will most likely encounter rain at some point.

Arenal Volcano

Costa Rica has so many different photo opportunities such as mountains, beaches, volcanoes, tropical rainforests, waterfalls and much more.  Plus the sunsets are amazing!! 

Sunset in Monte Verde

I spent 10 days traveling around this beautiful place and just wanted to share some of my photography as well as some tips with all of you. Enjoy!

Stefanie

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”  ~Albert Einstein

Size Matters.

All jokes aside, yes size really does matter when it comes to lenses.  Lens sizes vary significantly, and they all serve their own purposes.  My go-to lens now is my fixed 50mm.  It allows so much light in and has such a narrow depth of field that I can now shoot handheld indoors with natural light, instead of relying on my flash to fill in the light.  (It also helps that my 5D Mark II has a high ISO allowance.)  My other favorite types of lenses to work with are wide angle pushing towards fisheye.  These ones are around 14mm to 24 mm.  These lenses can help to fit a large group of people into a single image.  Personally, I love the blur and the curves of the lines that are created with these lenses.  But alas I digress, what I really want to talk to you about here are telephoto lenses.  I had the opportunity to "play" with a 400 mm lens the other weekend, and play I did.

I would say that this branch (in the above photo) was at least 20 feet away from me, but with the zoom you get up close and personal.  That is the typical use for a telephoto lens; it cuts out the distance between you and your subject.  But do not let that fool you, just because that is what a telephoto lens is typically used for does not mean you have to use it that way.

With this image, I was definitely not trying to get in close to a subject that I could otherwise not reach.  Instead I was trying to play with the depth of field of this particular zoom lens.  I laid on the ground about 10 feet away, and shot slightly angled up at the flowers.  Because of the angle I chose and the lens that I was using, I produced this image with a very strong focus on the flowers so that they become the absolute focal point of the image.

I like flowers so I figured I may as well throw in another shot! :)

Now with the shot above of the swingset, I was again trying to play with the depth of field.  I have to say that I love the detail in the swing of this image, and that most of the focus is there.  My one issue with this shot is that if I shot it again, I would try and work around the pole crossing the right half of the image.  I am not sure what I would have done with it, but I do find it distracting (clearly not distracting enough that I wouldn't share it though).

For my last image, I used the telephoto lens for it's typical use shooting a bird at the top of a tree at a significant distance.  I changed the feel of this image significantly in post, considering this was shot on a bright sunny day with blue skies.  I love how creepy it turned out!

Anyways, send us any images you had the opportunity to shoot with a telephoto lens!  We would love to take a look and see what other people are up to shooting at lengths!

Anne

"When I have a camera in my hand, I know no fear"-  Alfred Eisenstaedt

For the Love of Instagram!

    The more I use it, the more I love it!! I finally switched from my b-berry to my IPhone and I love, love, love it!  Then when I started using Instagram... I knew it was meant to be! (It also helps that the quality of the images on the IPhone are phenomenal compared to my last phone, but that's irrelevant!)  I love the square dimension of the images, and the editing capabilities.  The filters and the blur can make a mundane, everyday image just that much more interesting.  I mean how interesting can images be of snacks for a night in watching movies and of zucchini soup boiling away on the stove?:

Movie Night & Zucchini Soup

   The blur tool gives you so much control.  Not only can you choose how the blur functions in the image after you shoot, but you can also select the blur before you shoot so you already know how the image will look.  And after shooting, you still have the flexibility to change the blur again.  There are two blur shapes that Instagram uses one is a circular blur and the other is more linear.  The circular blur you can change the size of and move around the screen to pinpoint exactly what you want.  The linear blur can also be expanded  so only the edges are blurred or can be reduced so only a thin sliver is in focus.  The angle of the line can be changed, as well as moved anywhere in the image.  If you want a certain element in focus, you can also just tap the screen so that that part is included.  In the images below, you can see the two different types of blur.  The image of the landscape on the left uses the linear blur along the coastline, and the right image uses the circular blur around the skunk:

Old Saybrook & Backyard Visitor

     And on top of how the blur works, the filters work the same way.  They can be added before shooting the image or after, and with or without frame.  I do wish some of the filters were a little more editable, maybe with more contrast controls.  But that really is being picky... I can always re-edit the image in another editing ap, or load it to my computer and edit it in Photoshop.  By loading these into my computer, I found out something else that makes me very happy.  All of these images are at a quality that I can enlarge them and print them!  I sized the image all the way up to a 30 in x 30 in and there really was not too much damage to the image.  I see some new images being printed for my walls soon!  Especially the bridge on the right of the image below, which I snapped while coming home from Nantucket.  The one on the left was on the way to Nantucket because I had to show people that we did get snow in CT this December.

Snowy Drive & Bridge

    So who else out there loves Instagram?!  Send us some of your images, and we will post our favorites!  And follow me on Instagram... my handle is agattphoto!  (Stef's handle is sburnsphoto.)

Anne

"You don't take a photograph, you make it." - Ansel Adams