Galapagos - The final days of this photo tour

Our last couple of days in the Galapagos Islands were just as exciting as our first days there. We had endless subjects to photograph, and just like all the previous days, the landscape and animals were very different as we visited new locations. One other thing...the newer technology in our mirrorless cameras helped us capture something really hard to photograph in the past. Heck, let's start with that.

In the last blog post, I mentioned that we were able to watch the Water iguanas as they fed underwater. On this morning, we were able to walk around and watch the iguanas licking the salt off the rocks. 

They were not bothered by us at all, so we could get down low and pretty close to capture images like this.

There were endless iguana in sight, so it was not hard to find one to photograph. As we were watching these iguana sunning themselves, our guide pointed out that they would periodically "sneeze" out the excess salt from their noses. Everyone then tried to get a photo of that, but it was very hard to predict. One guy walked by us and said "I have been trying to get that shot for 8 years and still don't have one." It was at that point that I remembered that we had Canon's Pre-continuous shooting ability in our cameras, and we could go back half a second.

I showed everyone how to set this up in their cameras, and then we could wait for the iguana to expel the salt and hit the shutter button. And voila, it worked like a champ. You can see the middle iguana "sneezing" in this photo. 

I then captured this sequence of another iguana. I was using the Canon RF 100-500mm lens at 350mm and had my Canon R5 Mark II camera set to ISO 640, f/7.1, 1/400th sec. This shutter speed freezes the action just enough but also shows the motion of the spray.

We all had a great time using the pre-capture feature of the cameras.

What would have been SO difficult in the past, was easily repeatable with the new cameras. 

While walking around, we came across these two adorable baby Sea lions

Mom was nearby and yawning in the evening light.

I was sitting down and relaxing (just taking it all in) when I looked next to me and saw this Lava lizard hanging out right next to me. I loved the orange color along it's neck and had to get a shot of that.

The next day we were cruising along the coastline of Santiago Island when we came across this rock formation. They call this the Praying Monk and we could definitely see why they call it that.

We saw an abundance of birds on the last couple of days, including these Galapagos Brown Pelicans

This beautiful Tern was flying right towards us.

It was really fun to capture images of the Red-billed tropicbird as they flew by us, with their long flowing tails.

This was the first time that we were able to see the Red-footed booby. Just like most of the other birds in Galapagos, we could get very close to them for photos without them being bothered. This allowed me to get this tight shot (using the Canon RF 100-500mm lens at 500mm) showing the colors in the face of the bird. 

The baby Red-footed boobies were so darned cute. Little fluff-balls of white.

This is a tight shot of a Frigate bird. I really liked this frame, showing the face of the bird off-center, with the curve of the beak leading off to the left.

We watched them as they guarded their nests...

...and watched over the young birds.

This little Frigate bird had walked away from the nest and was in danger. Our guide gently picked it up and moved it back to it's mother.

Then it was feeding time. We all got down low to get photos of this little one being fed. This baby went all the way into the adult's mouth to get food.

I saw this one Red-footed booby hanging out in a tree and I loved the way that it was perfectly framed by the dark green leaves. I encouraged all my guests to get a shot of this. I also love the expression on the face of this bird.

We even had some appearances by the Blue-footed boobies on this island.

Our big finale for the trip was the chance to photograph the male Frigate birds with their large inflatable red throats. They do this the attract the females. This was our first sighting (and my safety shot in case we did not see any more). 

We ended up seeing plenty more of these amazing birds on our walk. We had an abundance of photos of the birds on the nests or in the tress, and I challenged everyone to try and get a shot of these birds in the air.

This was my first aerial photo, and what I thought would be my only one.

Right as we were about to get into our Zodiac to head back to our boat, I saw this Frigate bird flying past us. I quickly raised the Canon R5 Mark II and fired off a bunch of frames. It was the perfect ending to a magical week in the Galapagos.

For those who want to join me in the Galapagos, I have added a 2027 trip on my website and have 6 spots available. Feel free to reach out so I can hold a spot for you! And remember, you can borrow almost any Canon camera or lens you want at no charge for the trip. Not that you have to be a Canon user to join my trips, but...

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• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Alaska and more.

• You can purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
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Galapagos Photo Tour - Underwater photos and video!

I want to start this blog post by saying that I am no expert underwater photographer and have only taken photos under water a couple of times, but the following images also go to show that with decent photo knowledge and a small point and shoot camera, fun photos can be captured.

At first, I did not plan on bringing an underwater camera with me to Galapagos, but after talking to my contacts there, and seeing all the amazing sea life online, I thought that it would be a good decision. Canon no longer makes an underwater camera so I reached out to my friends at B&H photo who were nice enough to loan me a couple of the OM TG-7 point and shoot cameras to play with. I brought one for me to use and another to loan to my guests.

From the moment we jumped into the water with our snorkel gear, I was glad to have a camera in my hand. We saw a whole bunch of sea turtles and were able to swim with them for long periods of time. Knowing that the best photos would be captured close to the surface (where there was more light), I would typically wait until the turtles were closer to the surface before hitting the shutter button.

There were other times when I would dive down and capture photos a little deeper.

We could get within inches of these turtles. For this shot, I swam ahead of this turtle and let it come towards me.

We saw lots of different fish, and our guide (who was snorkeling with us) would help identify all of them.

We also saw some really beautiful starfish.

At one point, I swam up close to these rocks and saw some Blue-footed boobies that were hanging out. I raised the camera so that half of the lens was underwater and half was above the water line, to get this shot. I had to take at least ten photos to get the right amount of water and rocks in the shot. This one is one of my favorites from the trip.

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, we spent a lot of time with the Water iguanas. Most of that time was spent above water, but it was really cool to be under the water's surface and see them swimming around. 

They moved around really gracefully through the water.

I have snorkeled many times before (mostly in Hawaii) and have seen beautiful fish and sea turtles numerous times, but I have never been fortunate enough to swim with Sea lions. 

The Sea lions in Galapagos are really used to seeing people, so they will come right up to us and play, both with us and with each other.  That was really fun!

On our third time in the water, we came across a massive school of Surgeon fish. I dove down to get close enough to fill the frame with all of these beautiful fish.

Not long after capturing the image of the Surgeon fish, our guide pointed down and showed us four White tip sharks.

I followed this one around for a while capturing photos and video.

I was really enamored with the colors of the Parrotfish, and tried as best as I could to get a decent shot of one.

I had a great time capturing these images underwater, but had even more fun capturing video. Once again, I am no videographer or expert video editor, but I am still excited to share this fun video with you all. The video starts with underwater subjects, continues with some video on the islands, and then ends with some of my favorite still images captured on the trip. 

I captured all the underwater video with the OM TG-7 point and shoot camera, images and video on land with the Canon R5 Mark II, and edited the video using Apple's iMovie software. My good friend, Alan Waltz, saw the video and offered to score some music for it. You can check out that video HERE or by clicking on the image below.

I hope you enjoyed viewing all these photos and video from Galapagos as much as I did capturing it all.

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• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Alaska and more.

• You can purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
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Galapagos Photo Tour - Day 4 - Land iguanas and more

On our fourth day in the Galapagos, we visited Fernandina Island and Isabela Island (morning and evening) and spent some time in the water in between. I will be sharing the snorkeling photos soon, but not just yet. 

While making our way over to Fernandina Island, we saw many species of birds flying around us.  I captured this image of a low-flying Pelican as it flew along the coastline.

We also saw the Flightless cormorant birds for the first time. You can tell by the small wings, that these birds have, over many generations, lost their ability to fly. Amazingly enough, they swim very well and we saw many of them under water.

As always, we were greeted by many Sea lions.

While on Fernandina Island, this was our first really good sightings of the Land iguana. Unlike the Water iguana, these creatures are much more colorful and larger. This was one of the first Land iguana that we saw, so we all took turns getting down low to get a nice portrait of the face.

As we walked around, we came across numerous other Land iguana.

We all had fun photographing them at different angles.

It was fun to get down low with the Canon R5 Mark II and RF 100-500mm lens, to get right into their faces.

This one was in nice sunlight and even posed for us.

This was also the first time that we had seen the Giant tortoises since day 1 of the trip.

Towards the end of the day, as we pulled away from island, I saw these two birds sparring in the air. I loved the late-day sunlight on them and fired off a bunch of frames to see if I could capture them interacting. This was the best "peak of action" shot of the bunch.

After our multiple land visits and time in the water, it was time to head off towards our next destination. Before meeting for dinner, we all had a chance to relax on the boat. I was standing on the bow, when I noticed that we were joined by a bunch of Frigate birds. They were riding the air current of the boat and stayed with us until the sun set. I had all of my guests (minus one) who were in the area, get together for a group shot with our visitors.

Stay tuned for more from the Galapagos.

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Alaska and more.

• You can purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
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