The first time doing a dolphin excursion in Costa Rica!

I have been leading photo tours to the same area of Costa Rica for many years now, and the itinerary has stayed very much the same with a couple of small changes. Some of the changes were conscious changes made by me (based on my guests feedback) and others were made out of necessity.  One of the excursions that my guests enjoyed was a visit to an animal rehab area. Unfortunately that sanctuary has been shut down and so I needed to come up with a different excursion for my photo tour. One of the best parts of the sanctuary visit was the boat ride across the bay. I really wanted to keep that as part of my tour, to share this awesome experience with my guests. Working along with my contacts at the resort, we decided to replace the sanctuary trip with a whale and dolphin watching trip. And it turned out to be awesome!

Let me share the images and story of our amazing morning on the water.

The first question I always get from my guests when I tell them that we are going to be on the water is "How rough will the water be?" Because we stay within the bay and don't venture out into the open ocean waters, it is almost always very calm.  We boarded a boat around 8am and headed out looking for whales. I saw this guy fishing from a kayak and loved the calm scene and all the blue colors working together. As you can see, we had nice overcast skies which really helped to avoid harsh sunlight and shadows.

After 20 minutes or so, our captain and guide spotted a mother whale and her young calf. We cruised along with them for while, capturing photos of their backs, but never got a good shot of their heads or tails.

Getting a nice shot of their dorsal fins is fine, but gets old fast. It was time to move on to see if we could find some dolphins.

We headed back into the smoother waters of the bay and same across this sea turtle who made an appearance for a quick photo.

We also tracked a couple of white-footed booby, but were determined to find dolphins!

After 30 minutes of searching, we saw spotted dolphins out in the distance. I was VERY excited to see the dolphins for 4 reasons:

1. They have been my favorite animal since I was a young child.

2. It was a large pod with a lot of activity.

3. They were not just swimming, but jumping high into the air.

4. I wanted my guests to have great photo opportunities.

I was shooting with the Canon R5 camera and Canon RF 100-500mm lens. Because the high resolution of the Canon R5, I could crop in on the previous shot to get this image. It is less than 1MB in size, but still decent. I liked the "S curve" of the body but really wanted to see more of the face.

As we got closer to the pod, we were able to grab images like this without having to do heavy crops. 

This one dolphin jumped so high, facing us and leaving a trail of water off of it's body! This is one of my favorite photos from the trip. I was excited to see that numerous of my guests captured the same jump. It was just AWESOME!  

Here is a tighter crop of the same image. This one is going on the wall at my home (and I will be offering this and many other images for sale soon).

They just kept performing for us. 

We estimated that there were more than 100 spotted dolphins in this pod.

The more mature spotted dolphins show spots on their under belly. you can see that in this image.

Here is another favorite image from that morning and the photo tour. Actually, there are numerous images from this excursion that are in my all-time favorite image collection.

After spending over an hour with the spotted dolphins, we started to make our way back to the resort, when we came across a small pod of bottlenose dolphins. They came over and rode the bow wave of the boat. At this point, many of my guests had stopped taking photos and were just sitting on the bow, enjoying the show. As soon as I saw them right in front of us, I switched to my Canon R6II which had the Canon RF 24-105mm lens on it. I also happened to have my Tiffen Circular Polarizing filter on the lens, which helped to cut the glare and get better images of the dolphins in the water. I stood up and shot images over the heads of my guests. 

Then I decided to put the camera down and enjoy this for myself. I did take my iPhone out and grabbed a short video to remember the moment. You can see that HERE.

As you can imagine, this excursion is staying on my Costa Rica photo tours from now on! I hope you can join me on an upcoming trip to see this for yourself.

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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 and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours. 

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Capturing images of Scarlet Macaw in the rain forest of Costa Rica

I know this is crazy, but I have made 3 trips to the rain forest of Costa rica in the last 9 months and have not blogged any of the images. Heck, it is one of my favorite places to take photos, so I need to share these with all of you. 

For today, I am going to focus (pun intended) on the Scarlet Macaw. I personally think that this is one of the most beautiful birds to photograph. We see them every day on my photo tours to the Osa Peninsula, but getting them low and in an unobstructed view is a little more of a challenge. Getting great shots of them in flight is even more of a challenge. Every time I head down to the Osa I challenge myself to get better photos of these amazing birds.

I teach my guests to try and get photos of the animals without harsh light in the background. In this case, we had a couple of macaw hanging out in outer part of a tree, and the light was perfect. We had overcast skies which acted like a giant soft box in the sky. As nice as this image is, I have always wanted to get good shots of these birds in flight.

I captured this photo of this macaw with a nut in his mouth (which I really like), but the challenge with scarlet macaw is that photographing them from below means that we do not see all the great colors on their backs. 

On my most recent photo tour we came across 6 macaw that were taking turns grabbing nuts from this one tree. Once again, the light was perfect. 

We found a nearby slope which gave us a higher vantage point, and all we had to do was set our cameras properly and wait for them to grab a nut and fly off.  

I was using my Canon R5 with the Canon RF100-500mm lens. Since most of my guests were using similar gear (on free loan from Canon) I recommended that everyone set their cameras to a fast burst mode, animal detection for focus, ISO 3200, at f/7.1, and a shutter speed of 1/2000 sec. For those of you wondering why we were at f/7.1, this is the best aperture the Canon RF100-500mm lens will do at 500mm. Once set, we waited for the jump.

We all had a great time capturing images as they grabbed their food and then departed. It was so predictable. 

There was one spot where the birds would fly and the background was all far away, and dark. This gave us great separation between the bird and the foliage in the background.

Like an air traffic controller, I would call out to my photo tour guests just as the birds were about to take off.

Just as the macaw would push away from the tree, we would all fire our cameras in high speed, hoping to get great color and action. I think I took more than 500 images during this time, but I know one of my guests (you know who you are Jason 😀), took many thousands!

These last two photos and some of my favorites. I love that we were able to get a high enough position to be at eye level with the birds, and really see the colors in their feathers. As always, I look forward to the next trip to see if we get even better photos of these colorful beauties.

As I mentioned in the last blog post, my trips to Costa Rica are sold out for 2023, but I just added new photo tours for 2024. You can find those on the tour page.

Tease - My next blog post with images from Costa Rica will feature something new and really exciting!

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

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Come join me on new exciting Photo Tours!

I have just returned from yet another amazing photo tour in Costa Rica. We had an awesome group and captured countless breath taking photos worthy of printing and sharing. I will be sharing many of those images in upcoming blog posts.

In the mean time, I wanted to let you all know about upcoming photo tours for this year all the way out to 2025.

First and foremost, I have a photo tour in San Francisco that is happening in a couple of months and I have openings for this 3 day trip. We will be shooting both day and night photos, in all of my favorite locations in my home town. You can find more information on this trip HERE.

In Feb of next year we are heading back to one of my favorite places in the world, Tanzania! If you have not been to Africa, you owe it to yourself to get there! We have this trip on the schedule along with a 2025 trip. You can find more information on these trips HERE.

Last March we traveled to Japan to photograph this incredible country surrounded by the cherry blossoms. We will be doing this trip once again in 2024. You can find more information on this trip HERE.

As I mentioned, we just got back from the rain forest of Costa Rica and had a blast. The second trip of 2023 is already sold out, but I have now added two new trips for 2024. You can find more information on these trips HERE.

Last October we went Indochina to visit Vietnam and Cambodia. At that time, we could not get into Laos (still closed due to Covid), but now we can go there and we look forward to seeing all these places again in 2024.  You can find more information on this trip HERE.

For the first time ever, I am doing a photo tour to Greece. I am partnering with M&M Photo Tours on this tour (and many others), and they have been there many times.  This trip is on my bucket list and I look forward to photographing this amazing area with all of you.  You can find more information on this trip HERE.

We are heading back to Botswana in 2025. This is another favorite area for me. Not only are we doing land safaris, but we spend a lot of time on the Chobe River, which gives us the chance to photograph elephants, hippo, fish eagle and so much more from a low angle.  You can find more information on this trip HERE.

Last, but definitely not least, we are making our first ever trip to Peru in 2024. This trip is already sold out for 2024, but I will be adding another trip to see Machu Picchu and all the other great locations in this country for 2025. The dates are not set yet, but please let me know if you are interested in going on a future trip to Peru.

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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 and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours. 

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Paris 2024 Summer Olympics - Exactly one year away!

For most people, when the Olympics are a year away, they think "I look forward to watching the Olympics next year", but for me, when the Games are a year away, my stress level goes up a little. This means that I have a short window of time to complete the rest of my planning. 

Just to give you context, the process started more than a year ago, with me applying for my credentials. I got my confirmation from Team USA back in February that my request was approved, with the level of credentials I requested. Now the real work begins.

I got an email reminding me of the one year countdown, and it reminded me to log into the Paris 2024 Extranet site to check on everything. The one thing I need to lock down right away is my housing. As always, I will be photographing many different sports while at the Olympics, but my primary team will be USA Water Polo (Men and Women).  As it turns out, like in some of the previous Summer Games, the competition will change to a different venue and location once the teams reach the medal rounds. This means that I will have two primary locations to account for.

The preliminary rounds for water polo will be held in Seine-Saint-Denis, outside the center of Paris.

The medal rounds for water polo will be held in La Defense. 

This means that I need to select a press hotel (subsidized rates) that is located where I can easily get to both sites. Google Maps shows that the two locations are approximately 20 miles from each other with a 30 min drive time. But this travel time could vary depending on whether I am using a press bus or the metro. 

I have already reached out to the Accommodations team in Paris to determine my options.

The next thing I will work on, after I have figured out the housing, is my contract with the team. But since we have worked together for many years, I am not too stressed about that. And once I can book flights (since the airlines don't book out one year in advance), I will get that locked in.

I am very excited for Paris Olympics for many reasons. The first and foremost is that it will be the first Olympic Games in a long time where we hopefully do not need to worry about Covid. For those of you who have followed me through the past couple of Olympics, you remember the massive challenges I faced going (and not going) into those. The second reason I am excited about these Olympic Games is that they are located in Paris! If it is anything like the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the locations and backdrops could be amazing.  

Rendering from the Paris Olympic Website

And for the first time ever I hope to be photographing the opening ceremony outside of a stadium! If you have not heard, the Paris Organizing Committee (POCOG) is going to have the opening ceremony on the Seine River, with each team floating down the river with their teammates. This is the first time ever that an opening ceremony will be held outside of a stadium. This should be very cool (although potentially a logistical nightmare for those of us who need to get back to the press center right away to post images right away). 

As we get closer to the Games, I will keep you all up to date on the plans, the challenges and the successes.

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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 and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours. 

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Photographing the Sensorio light exhibit in Paso Robles!

Last month I made a visit to Paso Robles, California which is an area known for it's wineries, breweries and olive groves. But I really wanted to visit the area to see the Sensorio light show, which is a really cool site to see. The Sensorio light exhibit is a walking tour which comprises of thousands of solar powered fibre-optic lights which line the local hillsides, and are constantly changing in color. 

I have seen photos of this in the past and really wanted to see it for myself.

I took this photo at 8:52pm after the sun had set and the lights and colors were becoming really pronounced. But wait a second..let me start from the beginning. 

We purchased tickets well in advance, and arrived early enough to relax and watch the sunset. While the sun was still in the sky, I wanted to walk around to see some of the 15 acres. I brought my Canon R5 camera with the Canon RF 24-105mm lens. They do not allow tripods or "professional cameras" to be brought in to the area, but I figured that my one camera and relatively short lens would be allowed, which it was. (More on this in a minute)

I loved the way that the bare bulbs looked with the setting sun behind them, so I got down low and captured this image. 

As I always teach to my photo tour guests, a good photographer looks in all directions for photo opportunities. I turned around and saw that the moon was visible behind me. I walked to a spot where the moon would be just above the tree and grabbed this frame.

After walking around the area for half an hour, we decided to get some wine and cheese, sit down, and watch as the sun set and the lights became more visible. 

It was almost 9pm before the sky darkened and the lights really came into full effect. At this point, we started our walk. Typically it can get very hot in Paso Robles, but our visit to the area was perfect with really nice weather during the day and a cold evening. It actually got so cold that we were huddled by the fire pits before heading off on our walk.

There were so many places to stop and watch the lights, that I had a hard time figuring out where to capture my photos. I typically looked for good leading lines and trees as my supporting subjects.

As I turned in different directions I would get more (or less) light in the sky. I was also using exposure compensation in the camera (between -1 and -2) to darken the scene. 

I did this for two reasons:

1. It darkened the sky to a deep blue color.

2. I kept the colored lights from being overexposed.

I did most of my photography at the blue hour, which allowed me to still have nice color behind the trees.

Since I could not bring a tripod with me, I had to rely on the in-body camera stabilization, lens stabilization, and me holding the camera steady. Most of the images you see in this blog post were taken with the following settings:

Mode: A/V

ISO: 3200

Aperture: f/4

Exposure comp: -2

Shutter speed: 1/4 sec

During the retouching process, I would increase the exposure when needed and then run Topaz DeNoise on the images to take out any of the digital noise (grain).

Honestly, these newer cameras have such amazing stabilization that I am often shooting handheld at really slow shutter speeds with amazing results! 

It was now 9:06pm and I was able to capture the colored lights, the blue sky, and the moon in one photo. This is one of my favorites of the night. 

Just 5 minutes later, we lost the blue skies and I was now working with the grey/black sky. I had also taken most of the images that I wanted, so I decided to try something different. For this shot, I changed the camera settings to ISO 1600 (at f/4) which gave me a half second exposure. I pointed the camera at a nearby tree and then zoomed the lens out during the 1/2 second. This created the light streaks that you see here.

From the same location, I changed the camera to ISO 3200 (still at f/4) which gave me a 1/4 sec exposure and I twisted the camera to give me a different look.

I saw all these lights winding their way up to a tree and thought they made a perfect leading line. I turned the camera to take a vertical image and really like this one. I just wish I had taken this during the blue hour, as I prefer the deep blue sky to the muddy black sky you see here. 

This photo was taken at 9:12pm and was the last image showing any light in the sky.

When walking all the way to the back of the exhibit, they have some interesting light sculptures, including these light towers made out of wine bottles.

This is a close-up view of the wine bottles.

Also in the back area is a new display called "Fireflies" where almost 10,000 lights are blowing in the wind. Each of these clusters has flexible "tentacles" of lights which dance in the wind. It is really beautiful.

I took tight shots of the fireflies but also zoomed out to catch images like this one, with the sculptures, the tree, and the moon.

These last two photos were taken at close to 10pm. The light you see in the background (top right side of the image) is light pollution coming from buildings in the distance. This image was taken handheld at ISO 3200 (like most of the others).

This photo was taken at with the Canon R5 at ISO 1000 with a shutter speed of almost 3 seconds. For this shot, I rested the camera on a rock wall, set the 3 second timer, and avoided any shaking of the camera during the exposure.

If you live in California or have a display like this in your area, I would really recommend visiting. And if you do visit, I hope you will take your camera and have as much fun as I did!

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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 and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours. 

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