Looking Back: Past Olympic Best and Worst!

I am less than one week from heading to Milan, and sometimes the stress / excitement will keep me up at night, or wake me up. The other night I was awake at 3am and thinking about past Olympics and how all of those experiences may help me with the next one. As part of that, I started thinking about the best and worst from each Olympic games. I thought it would be interesting to put those down on paper (or here on the blog) for me to think about and to share with you all.

Here is my overview of each Olympics since 2008:

Beijing

Favorite Venue: The Water Cube
Transportation: Excellent bus service (but heavy crowds)
Housing: Really bad hotel - with beds that were as soft as concrete
Weather: Hot, and I mean REALLY hot and humid!
Best part: My first Olympics and the excitement of being there
Worst part: The heat and humidity
Key Memory: Seeing Michael Phelps swim for the first time

Vancouver

Favorite Venue: Rogers Arena (Ice hockey)
Transportation: Very good - and I could walk to the Ice Hockey Venue
Housing: Rented apartment - cramped but comfortable
Weather: Excellent
Best part: First time working with USA Hockey
Worst part: Due to previous commitments, I had to leave before the Gold Medal hockey game
Key Memory: Experiencing my first Winter Olympics

London

Favorite Venue: Equestrian in Greenwich
Transportation: Excellent bus service to all venues!
Housing: Really nice shared apartment in Canary Wharf
Weather: Excellent (except in the hot underground subway tubes)
Best part: Photographing my first Gold Medal game for the women of USA Water Polo
Worst part: Not sure I had one :)
Key Memory: Feeling the pressure of shooting the Gold Medal game and succeeding

Sochi

Favorite Venue: The Bolshoy Ice Dome (and having the second ice arena 50 feet away)
Transportation: Very good and always on time
Housing: Terrible place with no Internet access
Weather: Warmer than expected. I had to have my friend (NHL player) bring me more t-shirts.
Best part: Getting good shots and then getting out of Russia
Worst part: Dealing with a VERY unorganized housing department
Key Memory: Watching the women of USA hockey blow a lead at the end of the game and losing the Gold

Rio

Favorite Venue: All of them were great
Transportation: Excellent and always on time (and the first time having WiFi on all buses)
Housing: Great press hotel that was very close to the Olympic Park (and my friend and lead contact at USA Water Polo happened to be staying there too)
Weather: Warm but not too bad
Best part: Another Gold Medal for the USA women's water polo team
Worst part: The green water in the swimming pools
Key Memory: Photographing another Gold Medal game and enjoying this one a little more




PyeongChang

Favorite Venue: The figure skating and speed skating venue
Transportation: Very good bus service
Housing: Small but good
Weather: VERY cold! I think it was 5 degree F at the Opening Ceremony
Best part: The women os USA Hockey winning the Gold over Canada (retribution from Sochi)
Worst part: Having my roommate lose my shooting sleeve and the stress of that whole ordeal
Key Memory: The sleeve incident!!

Tokyo

Favorite Venue: Kabuki Theatre (just because of the history of the place)
Transportation: Terrible! The buses were never on time or did not show up at all.
Housing: I was in the smallest hotel room ever!
Weather: Brutally hot!!!
Best part: The fact that they even had the Olympics after a year delay (towards the end of the pandemic)

Worst part: Having to Covid test every day and worry about being quarantined for 2 weeks.
Key Memory: Capturing a third Gold Medal for the women of USA Water Polo (and partying with them on the pool deck afterwards)

Paris

Favorite Venue: Hands down - the Beach Volleyball venue at the Eiffel Tower - BEST VENUE EVER!
Transportation: We had to use public transportation and that was tough for hauling all the equipment.
Housing: Nice little hotel. The area was not great, but the people were nice and the room was good.
Weather: Really nice weather with only a few really hot days
Best part: Having the venues in Paris and watching Simone Biles do her thing
Worst part: No Gold Medal games to cover for USA Water Polo
Key Memory: Being high up in the stands at Beach Volleyball, in front of the Eiffel Tower at sunset (at a perfect 74 degrees F) and loving every second of that! I even put the camera down for a little bit and enjoyed the moment, which is rare!

I know how lucky I am to be able to do this, and pinch myself every time I get the opportunity. In less than a week I will be in Milan, and I can start building memories of yet another Olympics. I am really excited about that! 

The next blog post, which will likely be the last one before flying out, will show you all of the photography gear I will be bringing to Milan. I know that everyone loves that one!

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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, Africa, Iceland and more.

• 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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Shooting lots of hockey in preparation for Milan

Just like the athletes heading to the Olympics, us photographers have to warm up as well. I need to make sure that I am both physically and mentally ready for the challenge. I have been keeping in shape for all the walking and stair climbing that will be coming up in Milan, but more importantly, I need to be proficient at photographing hockey, since that will be my primary sport at the Games. 

As many of you know, I did not photograph the last Winter Olympics in Beijing because of the pandemic (scrapping the trip just 3 days before I was supposed to go). Even though I have been playing ice hockey almost every week for the past 25 years, I have not photographed the sport in quite a while. The sport may not have changed much, but the camera equipment has changed a TON in the last eight years!

Before heading to Milan, I knew that I needed to put the newer mirrorless cameras to the test. I needed to see how the subject tracking did with athletes wearing helmets and visors, and also how well the focus systems performed when shooting through plexiglass. Remember, unlike when photographing NHL hockey where they have holes in the glass for us, at the Olympics we shoot through the plexiglass. 

I started testing the equipment (Canon R1 with the Canon RF 70-200 Z lens) and getting myself used to photographing hockey with the guys I skate with every week. It was a fun time capturing images for my friends and also gave me a chance to warm up on us slower and older guys. :)

I started shooting from the bench with no glass in front of me.

The lighting at the rink is pretty good, but not as good as what I will have at the Olympics. I did have to remember to adjust the exposure compensation (up at least 1/3 stop) to make sure my exposures were correct. I also had to practice capturing the peak of action, which takes some practice for sure.

Keeping the puck in the frame is really important.

I shot everything at f/2.8 and kept my ISO set to 3200 to get a fast shutter speed for all the action. 

I tried different angles to remind myself which ones look best in photos.

I then moved to the side of the rink and started shooting through the plexiglass. This was pretty tough because the plexiglass at this rink is REALLY dirty from all the puck marks. It was tough shooting from this location, but it did allow me to get shots closer to the net.

The one thing I forgot about was, how cold it is in the rink when not suiting up and playing! Assuming that the rink in Milan will be colder than NHL rinks here in the US, I will be wearing a heavier jacket and using photography gloves!

We all have a good time at our skate, and it was a good reminder to me that capturing reaction is as important as capturing the action.

This is Eric and his son Wilson who I have been playing with for years. I took this father / son shot of them. Also good practice, as I will be doing team photos on the ice in Milan. 

And then it was time to photograph much faster action at the NHL level. Thanks to my contacts at the San Jose Sharks, I was granted media passes to a couple of games.  

The first game I covered was the Sharks vs Vegas Knights and this is me shooting through the plexiglass. (Photo credit to Frank Baskovich)

The first image I took was the iconic entrance of the San Jose Sharks through the sharks head. Because of the lights being turned down in the arena, I had to crank my ISO to 6400 to get a sharp picture of Macklin Celebrini (the team's new 19 year old superstar) coming onto the ice.

I started shooting fairly wide with the 70-200mm Z lens. I should mention that I am using the newer Canon RF 70-200 Z lens because it has internal zoom. This means that the lens does not change in length as I zoom in and out. This is critical when shooting up against the boards, because I don't want my lens slammed against the glass if the athletes are going to be crashing in the other direction. I have seen a photographer break his nose and other bones in his face from that scenario. I have also replaced the standard Canon lens hood with a rubber hood. This gives me an additional inch or so of cushion. 

Once I got warmed up, I started tracking the fast action better and shooting tighter. The light was much brighter in this NHL arena, so I was able to shoot all the images at ISO 800. Much cleaner than the higher ISO shots from the practice rink where we play!

Catching key moments is really important, so it felt good to capture frames like this.

I like sitting in the corner of the rink so that I have a good vantage point of the players skating up ice (with reflections in the glass like this)...

...and I also have a good view of the goal crease. 

This photo was taken from more of a side position, but at least 15 feet further up the ice. 

Towards the end of the game, I decided to shoot from a high position. I went back to the press room and switched lenses to the Canon RF 100-300mm lens to get some photos from a different perspective.

I like this vantage point  (at the top of the lower bowl), but it does not bring you, the viewer, into the action as much as the lower position.

On Friday night, I made my second trip back to the SAP Arena to cover the Sharks against the New York Rangers. This time I positioned myself on the side where the home team was shooting twice (which is what I typically do for USA hockey team at the Olympics). 

The Sharks came out on fire and scored three times in the first period, with Macklin Celebrini netting two of those goals. This was his first one of the night.

After the goal was scored I quickly turned to get fan reaction. Something I sometimes forget to do.

I love capturing all the guys fighting for position in front of the net.

As I mentioned, Macklin got two goals.

This was the celebration after his second goal...

One of the more challenging things about shooting through plexiglass, is trying to determine how much of an angle I can take before the glass distorts the image past the level of an acceptable photo. This was me testing that out, and for this photo it was fine. When I turned any more than this, or tried to capture images all the way at the other side of the rink, the photos were unusable. 

I love the way that the puck is perfectly centered on this shot, right in between on the players. I should also mention that I was shooting the Canon R1 at a burst rate of 30 frames a second to grab moments like you are seeing here.

During the second period, I stayed on the same side of the rink to capture the defensive action. As I have mentioned before, getting the puck in the frame is really important (most of the time).

This puck is not in this shot, but I loved the crash of these two Rangers after one of them was checked by one of the San Jose Sharks.

This shot shows the puck behind the goalie, but it was deflected away from the back of the net. 

This shows a really good save by the goalie, with the puck being blocked by his stick.

Here is a photo of me shooting during the third period (Photo credit: Dean Tait)

There was not nearly as much offense in the third period, but I grabbed a couple more frames like this one.

As the game came to an end, I stayed just long enough to grab this photo of the mascot, SJ Sharkie, coming out with the banner. Then I ran back to the press room to switch my camera gear. 

I grabbed my Canon R5 MKII with the Canon RF 24-70mm lens and ran back to the locker room entrance, waiting for them to let us into the room. I took some photos of the interviews, of course with the press spending the most time with Celebrini.

After the interview was over, Macklin and I had a chance to talk for a little bit. As you may have heard, he is the youngest player to ever play for Team Canada (at 19 years old) and he is beyond thrilled with this honor. Having never been to the Olympics, I told him a little of what to expect. Even though I will be photographing (and pulling for) Team USA, I plan on capturing images of Macklin, for him and his family. Regardless of who wins, it should be amazing!

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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, Africa, Iceland and more.

• 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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Photographing the Olympics - It is Stress Time!

Stress is a really weird thing, right? For me, I often feed off of it, but there are times when my stress level goes sky high and it works as a negative. This is one of those times. It is not that I am surprised by this, as it happens about a month before every Olympics. There are just so many things that have to come together before I feel comfortable.

This stress starts with me trying to schedule all the games I need to cover for the team, as well as the team photos, practices, press events, team parties and more. Some of these are on the calendar already, but many are not set in stone yet. I also have promised NBC and others to be available for interviews in between my other obligations, and I will be capturing images of Macklin Celebrini and the other San Jose Sharks who will be at the Games, for the team. Since there are only 4 sports happening in the city of Milan, I am hoping to make time for all of this. 

Then there is the outbound flight, which I sure hope goes without a hitch. Due to other photo jobs that I have here, I cannot fly out a week in advance, and the minute I land in Milan I need to get to work. Hopefully I will be able to sleep a little on the long flight from California to Europe. Either way, here is my plan:

Once I land in Milan in the afternoon, I will get my credentials laminated at the airport checkpoint and try to get to my hotel as soon as I can. In the past, there would be buses to take us to our hotel, but in the last two Olympics that has not happened. Once I get there, I will dump all my luggage and camera gear and find out how to get to the Main Press Center (MPC). Once I find my way there, I will:

* Get my photo sleeve (which is required to photograph at any venue)

* Find the location of the Canon CPS office (for loaner gear and repairs)

* Visit the on-site USOPC office. 

After this, I need to figure out the train system to get to both of the ice hockey venues (which are supposedly an hour from each other). I need to visit both venues to:

* Locate the press rooms

* Meet with the photo management staff

* Get a tour of the facility

* Determine the pre-determined shooting locations

* Find out the venue restrictions

* Get my locker

This will likely take most of the day.

I just found out that the following morning is when I need to take all the team photos for the US Women's hockey team. This consists of the main photo with all players, coaches and staff, and break-out groups as needed by the team. Regardless of how much sleep I have had over the last 48 hours, I need to be ON for these.

The following day (one day before the Opening Ceremony) is the first game for the women of USA Hockey, so my competition shooting starts then. 

Cramming all this together makes me nervous, but there is nothing I can do about it. The biggest stress right now is trying to think through all the unknowns, like:

* Getting access to the Milan Olympic Extranet (which I have been locked out of for the last 3 weeks, and I have been asking for them to reset my account). Without this I can not reconfirm my hotel reservation, my arrivals and departures details and more.

* The transportation from the airport to the hotel

* The quality of my hotel room (which is always interesting)

* The transportation from the hotel to the MPC and both hockey venues

* The condition of the main ice arena (which is way behind schedule), and the press room there. Will it be done?

There are also some stressful things that I CAN control, like:

* What clothes to pack

* What camera equipment to take

* What photo accessories I need

Normally I feed off the stress, but all of this is keeping me up at night. Am I complaining about this? I am definitely not, since I know what an honor it is to be there and to capture the images for the team. But I do look forward to getting there, getting familiar with the surroundings, and getting started!

One more thing...just like the athletes, I am warming up for the Games. Not only am I continuing my multi-year streak of walking at least 6 miles per day, but I have been photographing a lot of ice hockey over the last 3 weeks. This started with the guys I play hockey with, and then shooting at the NHL level, photographing some of the San Jose Sharks games. That is probably the next blog post.

__________________________________________________________

• 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, Africa, Iceland and more.

• 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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2026 Winter Olympics in Milan: All the pre-planning

We are now about 3 weeks from the start of the Winter Olympics in Milan, which means that starting Feb 6th many of you will be tuning in to watch the Games. The Olympics start soon, but the planning process for me started almost two years ago, and let me tell you, it is not like planning any other trip. I have gotten messages from many of you, asking questions about my lodging and transportation.  I chuckle when I read comments like "you might want to stay at this place" or "can't you take a helicopter from one location to another?" 

Let me start with the key differences between going to the Olympics and a visit to Milan any other time. 

Accreditation

Traveling to Italy for vacation would normally only require a passport and some money, but to work at the Olympics, the first step is to get accreditation (which happened about two years ago). This involves applications, approvals, security clearances and more. I should also mention that there are MANY different levels of accreditation for the Games. I always request the top-level photography pass that gives me access to all events.

Flights

Flights to the Games are almost always booked well in advance, with little room to make last minute changes. As it was this time around, I found out a couple of months ago, that the first ice hockey games start the day before the Opening Ceremony, so I had to change flights. If this had happened now, it would be very hard to find a good flight into Milan. I booked my original flight 10 months ago, as soon as the airlines would allow me to make a reservation. As for trying to get air transportation between the Olympic clusters, this is impossible for two reasons: Taking a helicopter or other air transportation would be impossibly expensive, and even if I had that kind of budget, the airspace will be locked down. I talked to a good friend of mine who has his own private jet and is used to easy travel wherever he goes, and even he could not get that kind of transport for the Olympics. Only select VIPs will be traveling by air between the different clusters. 

Hotels

If you or I were flying to Milan any other time, we could look up different hotels and easily pick one that fits our needs and our budget. During the Olympics, this same criteria does not exist. Firstly, most of the hotels in the city have been booked for years, and secondly the rates are going to be sky high. Much higher than most media people could afford. We are lucky, in that we have subsidized housing at certain hotels which had been designated for the press. These are under the Olympic Organizing Committee (IOC) control, and we cannot contact them directly for any help. So, when someone suggests a certain hotel in the city, I already know that this is not an option. 

About a year ago, I was granted access to the housing portal for these Games and selected my 3 top choices of press hotels. About a month later I got my allocation, and it was none of those three. I contacted the housing group and was able to get a different press hotel located near the main hockey arena. I had to pay them in full about 6 months ago, and now the rooming list and dates are locked in. I hope that the hotel is nice, but I never really know. If you have been reading the blog for a long time, you may recall some of the horrendous places I have stayed in the past, especially in Russia and Japan. I like to have a clean, comfortable and quiet room, but at the Olympics, the location is the most important factor since time is short, and I will be working crazy hours. 

Transportation

If I were visiting Milan for vacation, I would probably rely on a rental car, the train system or maybe Uber. I would be relaxed and in no hurry to get from one place to another. During the Olympics, time is compressed and every minute counts. I need to find the most efficient routes from the hotel to the Main Press Center (MPC) and venues, also remembering that I am transporting a lot of camera gear that is heavy and valuable. Driving my own vehicle is not an option since parking is difficult near any venue, there are also countless security checkpoints which would slow me down, and I could not use the Olympic lanes on the roads. FYI, almost every Olympic city will paint the Olympic Rings on certain lanes of any road leading to a venue, so that only official vehicles can use these. This allows us media to move between venues without much traffic. Then again, I am not sure if I will ever be on the roads, since I may be relying only on the train system. This is still unclear.

Packing

On a typical visit to Italy during the winter, I would put most of my packing effort on my clothing. Since I am not much of a fashion guy, this would be mostly casual clothing, jackets, shoes and packed in a carry-on bag. The weather in the city of Milan should be between 30F and 55F, so nothing too extreme. I will be spending a large amount of time inside ice rinks, so I need to plan for cold temperatures for most of every day.

At the Olympics, most of my stress level is in packing all my camera gear, laptops, accessories, and everything I need to get the photos for Team USA. The clothing is secondary (but still important). Now, instead of traveling with a carry-on bag and a camera backpack, I will likely have a large suitcase for my clothing, a medium sized camera backpack, and a large rolling camera bag. I will be posting a blog, talking about, and showing all my equipment (including some new gear!) right before I fly out.

More to come my friends.

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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, Africa, Iceland and more.

• 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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2026 Winter Olympics in Milan: The Challenges!!

Well folks, we are now about one month from the start of the Winter Olympics in Milan and there are a lot of challenges ahead, both for me personally and on a much larger scale. In this blog post I am going to share with you all, some of those challenges and how I plan to overcome them (or not).

First, lets start with the biggest challenge of all, the locations which are spread out all over the place, more than any other Olympics ever. This will be the first Olympics that I have covered where I will not be able to cover a wide variety of sports. In the city of Milan, there will be ice hockey, figure skating, short track speed skating, and long track speed skating. Everything else is in Cortina, Valtellina, Val di Fiemme or Anterselva which is between a 4 hour to 12 hour drive each way. This means that there is no way for me to cover any other sports other than what is in Milan. The Opening Ceremony is in Milan but even the Closing Ceremony is hours away in Verona. I will likely miss that as well. 

Then there are the ice hockey arenas. As I have done since 2010, I will be the official photographer for all ice hockey games for the men and women of Team USA. This means that I will be staying at a press hotel in the city center, as close as I can be to the main arena. But there are two hockey arenas in Milan which are on opposite sides of the city. This means that any games played in the second arena will be tougher to get to, and if there are men's and women's games that are at similar times, it will be virtually impossible for me to cover both. In Russian, I could walk from one arena to the other in 5 minutes or less. That won't be happening this time around. I will have to work in both venues and can only rely on public transportation to get around. Just like Paris, there are no press buses available for us in Milan. 

The even bigger is that the Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, which is the primary venue for hockey is still NOT completed yet. This is really hard to believe, knowing that the planning committee in Milan has had ten years to build everything out. 

Under normal circumstances, the arena would be completed at least 6 months in advance and we would have test events take place to make sure everything is working just right, but that has not happened yet! I have heard that there will be test events in the next week or so, but that is cutting it WAY too close for most peoples comfort. Remember, this is the first time in more than a decade that the NHL players are allowed to represent their home countries. That is a really big deal. They will also be playing on ice that is irregular in size (not NHL size and not International size either).  This is so strange, but a real fact. And lets not forget the women, who are outstanding hockey players, who ultimately will be the guinea pigs, since their competition starts before the men. The first women's game for USA Hockey actually happens the day BEFORE the Opening Ceremony. That would be Feb 5th, which is not too long from now. 

Assuming they get the ice in place and all the seating done, I then wonder what will be skipped. This brings back memories of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, which were played in the "not so finished" Bolshoy Ice Dome. It looked great on television, but I remember staircases that were unusable (missing many of the stairs) and a hole in the ceiling of the press bathroom where I could see the feet of the spectators in their seats. So this leads me to wonder not just whether the ice surface and spectator areas will be completed, but what about the press rooms, underground bathrooms, internet wiring and everything else that we rely on? 

This venue is supposed to be running every day and all day with men's and women's hockey games. 

Another interesting challenge for me will be resetting my body clock. Sure, it is common to handle this when traveling to work in another country, but these games are going to be played at really crazy hours. Since NBC wants to air the USA Hockey games live in the US, many of the games will start at either 9pm or as late as 11pm and run until 2am. This means that for some games I will be working on images in the press room  until 4am or 5am, and then have to make my way back to the hotel using the trains. I sure hope they have black-out blinds at the hotel, but I am guessing that this will not be the case. Time to order a sleep mask on Amazon.

All press hotels are required to feed us breakfast, and this is the one meal where I usually fuel up for the day, but I don't think I will be awake during the breakfast hours. Maybe I can arrange a breakfast box each day but I have no idea if that will be possible. Most likely not. I know...these are small problems, but during the Olympics, time is precious and knowing that I have "known place and time" to get food is a bigger deal than you might think.

The good news is that I will be there and doing what I love, and the bad news is the unknown for which I am about to encounter. I guess this is going to be interesting for all of you as I blog daily and share my experiences (good and bad) once again. 

Upcoming blog posts will be covering the equipment I am bringing, my pre-Olympic preparations and more.

Stay tuned my friends!

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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, Africa, Iceland and more.

• 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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A WHOLE BUNCH of favorite images from my last trip to Costa Rica!

In November, I spent about 3 weeks in the rain forest of Costa Rica leading my 15th and 16th photo tours down there and it was awesome. Both groups were full of fun people who got along famously, and I was lucky enough to be with all of them.

As always, as I am teaching everyone, I am able to get photos for myself (although this is always secondary to my guests getting their shots). In this blog post, I thought I would share many of my favorite photos from both photo tours. This also gives you an idea of how many photo opportunities we have down there, and also shows the variety of what we see during the tour. This is way more images than I normally include in one blog post, but I thought it would be fun for you all to see them at one time. 

(Note: after uploading all these, I noticed that I accidentally watermarked them with a 2024 date. That should be 2025.)

All these photo are in chronological order as they were taken, and almost all of them were captured with the Canon R5 Mark II and RF 100-300mm lens with either the 1.4x or 2x teleconverter.

I have photographed many Scarlet Macaw, but usually don't like capturing them from behind. But in this case, they were flying out over the marina and I loved the scene.

This is a photo I posted on social media as one of the favorites from the first tour, as we came across this mother and baby Howler monkey curled up together in perfect light.

This parrot was flying by and I grabbed a quick shot.

On our day of close-up shooting, we had a great time photographing the Red-eyed tree frogs. Since I have photographed them so many times, my goal now is to capture them differently than in the past. I stood back and shot this little guy with the RF 100-300mm lens with the 1.4x teleconverter. A little wider than usual but I like this composition.

It was a challenge to keep the focus point on the face of this Eyelash viper.

As we were driving back from the macro place, we saw this Fire-billed Aracari in a tree. We all set our face detection on the bird and, just after doing that, it flew right at us! What a cool perspective.

Since the introduction of "pre-continuous shooting" on the Canon cameras, I now love teaching people how to use this feature to capture birds doing more than just standing on a branch. 

We would put our focus on them and wait for them to jump or fly, and then hammer the shutter.

Since I had recently photographed the Blue-footed Boobies and Red-footed Boobies in the Galapagos Islands, it was fun to capture yet another species to add to my collection, the Brown-footed Boobies in Costa Rica.

I liked the symmetry of these two Pelicans who flew by us during our dolphin tour.

Speaking of dolphins, we saw these two Spotted dolphins following the wake of our boat. Since these are my favorite animals, I always LOVE capturing photos of them.

It was our day off (during the first tour) and I was standing on the balcony outside my room, and saw these two Toucans hanging out on a tree just across from me. It was fun to capture images at their same level.

This Iguana made an appearance at the chocolate plantation.

We were all trying to get good shots of a sloth that was up in a tree, when one of our guides spotted this beautiful snake hanging out in a pile of leaves. We all had fun capturing the pretty colors of this subject.

We also had a Woodpecker in the trees above us.

The next morning, we were all having breakfast and saw a pack of Squirrel monkeys jumping from one tree to another. It was early in the morning and there was not much sunlight yet, so I thought that the only way to capture them in action was to motion pan them. High risk and high return! I was at ISO 5000 and still only at 1/100th of a second. I took a lot of photos, and managed to capture 3 or 4 that were sharp on the monkeys. 

These White-face monkeys made me laugh.

Here is an American White Ibis hanging out on a branch.

We even had a rare sighting of an owl buried in a tree, with his eyes open.

We have raccoons back home, but until this last trip, I had not seen many in Costa Rica.

I loved the color of this Caterpillar that was hanging out on a branch next to the resort lobby as my first group was about to fly out. This was later become a Gypsy Moth.

I did not take too many photos during my 3 day break between photo tours, but I saw this Crested Caracara from the balcony of my room and could not resist capturing an image.

We saw endless amounts of monkeys on the property on this last trip. This White-faced monkey was very protective of it's apples.

This monkey was not far from the restaurant at the resort, but it had no need to order, as it was already enjoying a snack.

I never get tired of photographing hummingbirds.

As we started the next photo tour, one of the first things we saw were some Cattle egrets, young and old.

This was a great chance to teach the new group about exposure compensation, as these white birds flew in front of a dark background. It was critical to set the exposure of the camera to -1 or even -2 to keep the whites of the bird from being over exposed.

Two more White-faced monkeys keeping watch over each other.

A Squirrel monkey just hanging out, literally.

I photographed the phosphorescent bugs for the first time a couple of years ago and still enjoy doing that. 

This was my first "action shot" of one of these bugs. :)

I have been to the beaches in Costa Rica so many times and never really photographed the crabs. After grabbing this image, I realize that I was missing something cool, and will encourage guests to get a shot like this in the future.

We were really lucky to come across about 20 Scarlet macaw that were flying back and forth to get palm nuts from a particular tree. This gave us a chance to capture them in flight.

This is one of the Macaw flying off of the palm tree.

This is now one of my favorite photos of a Scarlet macaw. Perfectly sharp with a palm nut in the mouth. This was taken with the Canon R5 Mark II and the RF 100-300mm lens withthe 2x teleconverter attached.

Here is yet another shot from the balcony of my room. A Fire-billed Aracari moving from tree to tree.

We don't always see the King Vultures on our tours, but this time we did.

We even saw a young Ant eater walking around in the grass. Another first for me.

I used to call our day photographing the frogs and snakes our "macro day" but some of my guests suggested that I call it "close-up day" instead since so many of us now use long lenses to capture the little creatures. Why have things changed? Because up until about 6 years ago, the long lenses would not let us focus within a couple of feet of our subject, but the news lenses do this easily.

More photos of the Red-eye tree frog. A very different look from the photo you saw previously in this blog.

More hummingbirds in flight...

...and more Eyelash vipers.

I love photographing colorful subjects and the Red-legged Honeycreeper had lots of color.

On the second dolphin excursion, we were all capturing images of the birds as they flew by. I focused on this Great Blue Heron as it flew low to the water. It was not until I was going through my images on the MacBook Pro, that I saw the fish jumping in front of the Heron. A lucky capture.

Sometimes we have to wait an hour or more to find the dolphins in the gulf, but on this day we saw them almost immediately. I had our boat captains crank up the motors so that the dolphins would swim in our wake. We all got really nice images of the dolphins once again.

We were all thrilled to see this mother and youngster jumping together!

There are always turtles sunning themselves in the Crocodile pond. On this morning, we had good light and nice reflections.

More Yellow-throated Toucans in flight. This one was captured at 1/400th of a second...

...and this one was captured at 1/100th of a second as I motion panned it as it flew by.

This White-nosed Coati visited us for breakfast one morning...

...and stuck his tongue out at me. :)

This Fire-billed Aracari was sitting high up in a tree, almost at the exact height of the building I was staying in. I grabbed my camera and went to the rooftop and took this photo with it perfectly framed with leaves, and in nice even light.

On the second photo tour, I changed things up and added an extra "close-up day" of shooting at a new location, which allowed us to capture different species from the first day.

I really liked the color of this Cricket, and the position it was in. 

This was another first for me. This is a Stick insect which is really hard to see when it is closed up. A bunch of us were capturing images of it, when it was closed and looking like a stick, when it opened up and flew away.

I have always been intrigued by Tarantulas, and was happy to see that the local guide had found one for us to shoot. 

A couple more Squirrel monkeys that were mating seconds before I took this photo.

Lastly, a shot of a Two-toed Sloth that was nice enough to come down from a tree for us.

I still have room in some of my 2026 trips to Costa Rica (as well as the bear trip in Minnesota, Iceland, Peru, the Galapagos) and new 2027 dates for Costa Rica. Take a look at my tour page and let me know if you are interested in any of these upcoming trips.

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