The Colors of Costa Rica (and a really tough shot)!

After leading many photo tours to Costa Rica, people often ask me if I ever get tired of it and the answer is a definitive "No!" I remind them that every trip has different people who I enjoy meeting, offers up new experiences, and provides new sightings of wildlife. This last trip started with a really big storm, and even though heavy rain is the norm down on the Osa Peninsula, the high winds downed a lot of trees. Luckily that first day was the only bad day we had, and everything else was smooth sailing. 

As I looked back at the photos from this trip, I thought about the beautiful colors that we see in the rain forest and thought that this would make for a nice blog post.

Many times I save my favorite photo for the end of the blog post, but this time I am going to lead with it. 

While driving around looking for wildlife, we came across a couple of Scarlet macaw that were nested in a tree hole. We were all trying to get nice photos of them when they both flew off and headed to our left. Without changing any camera settings, and knowing that my shutter speed would be really slow, I fired off 5 shots hoping to get a motion pan of the birds flying. I was using the Canon R5 Mark II camera with the RF 100-500mm lens at 428mm.  My ISO was set to 1250, aperture at f/6.3 and this gave me a shutter speed of 1/30 of a second. Even though I was shooting handheld, I steadied myself and hoped for the best. This is one of my favorite photos from the trip, and one of the hardest photos I have taken in a really long time. I love the motion and the colors, and knowing the difficulty of getting this with the birds faces pretty sharp.

Sure...we can capture their color without the motion, but I love the challenge of the first shot.

When exiting the vehicle at the Chocolate tour, one my guests looked at a nearby leaf and saw this beautiful butterfly. What awesome colors in the wings.

This Trogon was showing off his colors, especially against the complimenting green leaves. I posted this image in a previous blog, but found that the exposure needed to be brightened a bit. So...the repost.

And of course, I can't leave out the colorful Red-eyed tree frogs, since they are so awesome.

We saw these Seedeaters in the tall grasses by a river and had fun capturing images of them. A small splash of color amongst the green foliage.

Speaking of the foliage, it is not just the wildlife which offer colorful images. We are surrounded by abundant color on this trip.

I saw this white butterfly perched on this colorful flower and liked the scene. The simplicity of the white wings worked well against the color which surrounded the insect. 

While cruising down the Sierpe River, I saw these pretty flowers protruding over the water and thought it would make for a pretty photo.

We almost always have a free day in the rain forest towards the end of the trip. I usually catch up on work, relax at the pool, and walk the property looking for cool things to photograph. I saw this phosphorescent fly on a flower, zoomed the long lens to 500mm and captured the amazing colors of this little bug. As I mentioned, there is color everywhere, from the biggest subject to the smallest insects. 

If you want to join me in Costa Rica next year, I have added 3 new trips to 2026. Check out the dates HERE.

 

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