The fall colors of Spokane, Washington and the river at night

I am currently in Spokane, WA speaking at Whitworth University, and had some time yesterday afternoon to walk around the city and grab some photos. Since I am staying along the river, I started my 10 mile walk on the riverside.

This was one of the first views I saw, with the great colors in the trees, and the dramatic cloudy sky.

I walked to the main falls and took this photo. I liked the composition, but thought that this would make an even better night shot.

After walking along the river, I went to Manito Park. Most of the park was without color, since it is the wrong time of year for their blooms.

Within the park, they have a Japanese garden, which had great fall colors. I got down low for this photo, to show the colorful leaves on the ground.

There was one tree in particular that was in full red color, and I moved to many positions to get these two photos. My goal was to get the red leaves in front of a complimentary colored background.

Even though my feet were tired from walking all afternoon, I could not resist the temptation to walk back to my original river location to get this night shot.  I waited in this spot for an hour to get the perfect deep blue skies. I had my Canon 5D Mark IV and Canon 24-105mm lens mounted on my Gitzo travel tripod and Acratech ball head. Unlike the day shot that was taken with a fast shutter speed, this night photo was taken with a 15 second exposure. The long exposure blurs the water perfectly and adds to the drama of the photo. Compare this night shot to the day shot, and I think you'll agree that this one is much more interesting.

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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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Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Europe, Asia, India and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.

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From New York to home (to shoot a Bar Mitzvah), and now off to Spokane, WA

I guess there is no rest this month. Last week I was speaking at B&H Photo and at Photo Plus in New York, and flew home just in time to photograph a Bar Mitzvah all day yesterday.  Now I am off to Spokane, Washington to speak at Whitworth University tomorrow and Tuesday. 

For those of you who live in the Spokane area, I will be presenting (for the first time ever) all my favorite Olympic images from the last 6 Games. This is on Tuesday evening and is free to the public. You can get more information HERE from the university web page.

I have not been up to Spokane in a long time, and am excited to spread the passion for photography and meet new people.

Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!
__________________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________________
Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Europe, Asia, India and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.

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Back in New York City

I am back in New York and getting ready to present at the Event Space at B&H Photo tomorrow (Wed). If you are here in the city, or somewhere nearby, come by tomorrow and say hello.

I am presenting twice.

10am EST: Keeping Your Images Safe - Sign up free here

1pm EST: Technology Changes That Make Photography Better - Sign up free here

Both of these presentations will be live streamed and eventually posted to their YouTube channel.

On Thursday I will be at the PhotoPlus trade show at the Javits Center in NY. You can find me at the Drobo booth at 11am and 1pm. Come say hello!

Costa Rica Photo Tour - A very RARE sighting of an Ocelot in the rain forest!

The best part of Costa Rica is the diversity of the wildlife in the area. As you will see from this blog post, there is everything from amazing birds, crazy reptiles and even big cats!

One of my favorite birds to photograph is the Scarlet macaw. These colors in these birds just fascinates me. You can hear these birds from very far away, making it pretty easy to find them in the wild. I saw this macaw hanging from a tree and quickly grabbed this shot.

For the first time ever, I took the tour group on a boat trip on a river in the Osa Peninsula. As we cruised along the river, we were treated to some really cool photo opportunities. This Kingfisher was hanging out on a nearby branch, so we cruised in slowly to get a nice tight shot.

I have seen monkeys many times in Costa Rica, but never seen them get near the water, let alone IN the water. We saw a group of young monkeys playing in the low hanging trees and laughed as they chased each other into the water. I love this photo of the monkey hanging halfway in the river.

We saw this Caymen sitting on the river bank, with his mouth wide open. He was not threatening us, they open their mouths to regulate their body temperature. Just like I have done in Africva, when photographing the crocodiles there, I got down low in the boat to try and get eye level with the Caymen. I also liked the way that the surrounding plants framed the animal in the shot.

The next day, we took the group to my favorite animal sanctuary where we could interact with the local Spider monkeys.

 We were even lucky enough to see this one mother with her toddler.

So cute!

On one of our last nights on the photo tour, we took more macro shots of the tree frogs. They stay in one place for a pretty long time, so we could set up our tripods and light them with my little LED lights.

This photo made me laugh. I was taking photos of this frog, when a bug decided to fly in and test the frog's patience. I was wondering if the frog would try to eat the bug, but it never happened. Either way, I like the stare-down happening here.

At one point, I noticed that my LED light was casting a shadow of this little yellow tree frog on the leaf. I moved back and took this wide shot of the scene. It does not show the close-up detail of the frog, but is one of my favorite frog photos ever. I like the way that the yellow frog stands out in the otherwise dark frame.

On our last game drive, we had been out photographing birds, sloths, and monkeys, when we decided it was time to call it a day and return to the lodge. We were cruising down a local road when I saw something large out of the corner of my eye. I was in the front seat of the Mercedes Sprinter with Dennis (our guide) helping to spot wildlife, but never thought I would spot a large cat. I yelled at Dennis to stop, and pointed out my window to have him identify what we were seeing. He was as excited as all of us, and said that it was an Ocelot. I was out of the vehicle before it even rolled to a stop. In 12 years of being a guide in the area, Dennis had never seen a Ocelot in the wild. I didn't even have time to change my camera settings as I started shooting. But being that it was late in the afternoon, and the sunlight was low, I could hear that my shutter was pretty slow. Instead of trying to change settings and risk missing the shot, I decided to pan along with the cat. I took this with the Canon 1D X Mark II and the Canon 100-400mm lens. I was at ISO 800 and an aperture of f/5.6. This gave me a shutter speed of 1/100th sec. The decision was the right one and  I was THRILLED to get this shot. This was definitely a highlight shot from the trip.


Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!
__________________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________________
Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Europe, Asia, India and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.

__________________________________________________________________________

Costa Rica Photo Tour - A full day of macro photography

You can't go to the rain forest of Costa Rica without a macro lens. There are so many cool small things to photograph there. On Aug 16th, I took our group to one of my favorite places to photograph the tree frogs and snakes in the area.

We started with the red-eyed tree frogs and everyone had so much fun capturing images of these beautiful little creatures. I would set my Canon 5D Mark IV and Canon 100mm macro lens on my tripod, determine best camera settings for everyone, and then they would take turns getting their photos, using my suggestions and experimenting on their own.

This frog is about half the size of the red-eyed tree frog (about 1/4 inch in length), and very difficult to photograph.

This lizard was about two feet long and much easier for us to photograph. I suggested that everyone move to this location, to photograph the lizard with a solid background behind our subject.

When it came time to photograph snakes, we all stood a little farther away and switched to our longer lenses (many of which were loaned at no cost by Canon Professional Services!)

Even the snakes in Costa Rica are colorful.

At this point I was using my Canon 1D X Mark II with the Canon 100-400mm lens (the same lens that most of the group was using).

This Eyelash viper was the coolest of them all. Look at those amazing markings!

We had lunch at the top of the mountain, and after taking more macro shots, we headed back towards the resort. As we were heading down the mountain side, I saw this scene and asked Dennis (our trusty guide) to stop for a group photo. Being an experienced photographer himself, I asked him to take the group shot for me. Thanks Dennis for taking this photo of our happy group!

Stay tuned for more Costa Rica shots. And if you are interested in going on the 2019 trip (only time for one next year), please contact me. We have 4 spots left.

Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!
__________________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________________
Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Europe, Asia, India and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.

__________________________________________________________________________

Costa Rica Photo Tour - The first couple of days of our tour

In August I lead another photo tour to the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica, one of my favorite places in the world. This was the only photo tour to the rain forest for 2018 since my schedule is just too busy to fit in any others. But it was an epic trip for the ten of us, as you will see in the following images from day one and day two of the adventure.

Since we had 10 of us, we were able to charter our own plane to get us to the rain forest from San Jose, CR. This was a twin engine plane that made the trip in a brisk 40 minutes, and allowed us to take as much luggage as we wanted.

Having done this flight many times, I told my guests that we may have visibility of the rain forest on the flight in, or may not. It really depended on the weather. I recommended that everyone have one camera with a medium length zoom lens. I was using my Canon 5D Mark IV with the Canon 24-105mm lens. Well...as you can see, it was very clear and we all got great shots from the plane.

We landed at the resort early enough to have a nice breakfast, and then went out for a walk on the resort grounds. This time I took my Canon 1D X Mark II with the Canon 100-400mm lens. In the first couple of minutes we saw this Cayman swimming in river. They are pretty harmless, so we took turns getting down low to the water and taking photos, loving the reflection in the still water surrounding him.

Also along the river's bank is a tree that is almost always covered in these birds. The difference this time was that we could see the babies in one of the nests. This is why I took the Canon 100-400mm lens, so I could zoom in on subjects like these little ones. Almost everyone else on the tour was using the same lens (other than the Nikon shooters) since Canon loans them for free to anyone who comes on one of my photo tours.

One of the great things about the Canon 100-400mm II lens is that it can focus on subjects that are very close to the lens. I was able to use the long zoom to get this "macro type" shot of a butterfly.

We saw this Tucan in a distant tree and we were able to get a reasonable photo of this awesome bird.

We did take a short drive from the resort and found some Squirrel monkeys moving from one tree to another.

On the second day, we drove out searching for the four species of monkey in the area. Not long into the drive, Dennis (our faithful guide) spotted some Howler monkeys in the branches above the road. We all got out of the vehicle and captured photos of these monkeys. This one had some bad teeth, but gave me that Elvis Presley look. That made me laugh.

While stopped on the roadside, Dennis spotted this lizard in a nearby bush. I moved to a position where the light was really nice and grabbed this shot. This was also a good teaching spot, showing how to move to avoid distractions in the background.

We also saw this Roadside hawk watching us from above.

The group was excited to see this adult and baby Squirrel monkey.

Costa Rica has the coolest looking birds!

It isn't easy to capture photos of the monkeys jumping from one tree to another, but these monkeys followed each other, taking turns jumping from the same branch, which made it a little easier.

This Squirrel monkey stopped in the perfect place for a portrait, helping all of you see just how long their tails are.

It was later in the day when we saw our first Spider monkeys. They were pretty high in the trees and Dennis and I were deciding whether it was worth stopping to try and photograph them. We decided that it might be worth it. And I am so glad that we did.

While we were photographing the monkeys, Dennis spotted a Three-toed Sloth low in the tree.

The sloth was only 15 feet from the road and almost at eye level! Usually we see sloths high in the trees, and get the typical "sloth butt" shot. But not this time!

At first, the light on the sloth was not good, but we saw that clouds were coming in, which would neutralize the light. We must have photographed this sloth for at least an hour and a half as it ate and moved around.

I told all of the photo tour guests that this was a rare treat, not only seeing the sloth so close, but also having it be so active. We all drove back to the resort happy as can be, knowing that we got some really epic photos of the sloth!

Stay tuned for more Costa Rica shots. And if you are interested in going on the 2019 trip (only time for one next year), please contact me. We have 4 spots left.

Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!
__________________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________________
Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Europe, Asia, India and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.

__________________________________________________________________________