Greetings from Playa Potrero

Playa Potrero is a small beach town on the Pacific Ocean in Costa Rica, located in the Guanacaste region. This is a great location for wildlife viewing due to its proximity to many of Costa Rica's national parks. One park of particular interest is the Playa Grande Beach Preserve. This is one of four nesting sites on the the entire planet for the giant leatherback sea turtles, and by far the most significant. Like many species here, the populations of the leatherback are on a steady decline. This is mainly due to crude commercial fishing methods, and land development on their nesting sites. Costa Rica has launched a major conservation effort to protect the future of this giant turtle. We are lucky enough to be here during nesting season, so we were excited to take a tour of Playa Grande to see them up close and personal. The tour was interesting because the leatherbacks come up on shore during a six hour window that is three hours before high tide and three hours after, so you have to be there during that time. When we arrived, they sat us down in a room and gave us a small presentation about the turtles, and then we just had to wait....and wait.....and wait....and wait. Unfortunately, the turtles never came that night, so we were out of luck. I was really looking forward to seeing the turtles, so it was kind of a bummer, but that's nature. They seemed pretty concerned because the turtles didn't show up the night before either.

Yesterday, we woke up early to take a tour of the Palo Verde national park for a riverboat tour of the Tempisque river. This tour was a nature lovers dream! We saw more bird species than I can count, crocodiles, lizards and the highlight of the trip-Monkeys! We were fortunate enough to see the white face monkeys, which actualy jumped on to the boat to grab bananas out of our hands, and howler monkeys. Although getting to feed wild white-faced monkeys was great, the highlight for me was the Howler Monkeys. They are very territorial, so they are very willing to show you how they got their name! As soon a we approached the males got all worked up and started yelling at us, but when the guide revved up the motor they went ballistic! The name Howler realy doesn't do them justice. They let out a really deep roar that is unmistakable. They say that you can hear the call of a Howler from a mile away. That's pretty crazy considering that they are about the side of a medium sized dog. You can see the best photos from the trip here- http://www.flickr.com/photos/amador01/ All were taken handheld with the Sigma 100-300. Sorry for the links, but the photo upload isn't working for some reason.

Pura Vida!

...that's the slogan in Costa Rica. It means pure life, and the Costa Rican's apply this philosophy to every thing they do. I have never seen a culture so passionate about just being.

After a looooong trip from California, we finaly arrived at the Monteverde Cloud Preserve just before dark. After checking into the lodge and booking a morning tour of the cloud preserve, we headed over to the local frog ponds. The frog pond is an indoor facility where they have a living habitat set up with about 30 of Costa Ricas 150+ frog species on display. While Costa Rica is famous for it's frog population, it is becoming increasingly difficult to see them in the wild. Amphibians are what they call an indicator species. They are extremely sensitive to enviromental changes. In fact, they are so sensitive that they don't let you use a flash to photograph them at night because the sudden heat from the flash is enough to make them sick. One species that is missing from the tour is the Golden Toad. Monteverde is the only place in the world where this toad lives. Unfortunatley, it's now thought to be extinct. The Costa Rican's attribute this directly to the global climate change. My favorite was the red-eyed tree frog. This shot was taken at nightime, lit by a headlamp, handheld at ISO 1,250
http://www.flickr.com/photos/amador01/2995030007/

Friday morning we met our tour guide, Carlos(who happened to be the same guide that we had last year when we were here), at 7:00am for our cloud preserve tour. I haven't seen many places in the world, but I would have a hard time believing there are many places more beautiful that this. It is absolutely incredible. People travel from all over the world to the Monteverde Cloud Preserve for one reason; a chance to to see the Resplendant Quetzal. The Quetzal is a very important bird in the Aztac and Mayan cultures, as only the kings were allowed to wear its feathers. It is considered to be the most beautiful bird in the world. Although Monteverde is your best chance to see this amazing bird, it is still very rare to see one, so I feel very fortunate to have seen one both times we have visited. It is very difficult to photograph under the forest canopy because there is no light! But nevertheless, I was honored to have the opportunity to photograph such a rare bird, so while it's not the best shot, I am happy to have captured it-http://www.flickr.com/photos/amador01/2995868954/

Being that this is a photography blog, I should mention that the conditions for photography so far could not be worse! The wind has been absoulutely brutal. That combined with slow shutter speeds for the available light(no flashes are allowed), and a 420mm focal length make for a lot of blurry photographs. I am hoping for better conditions soon!

New Lens!

After a solid month of agonizing over which telephoto zoom I wanted, I finally settled on the Sigma 100-300 f/4. I chose the Sigma for a few reasons. A) It has a constant f/4 aperture throughout the entire zoom, which makes it suitable for low light conditions. B) It has internal focusing so the front element does not rotate. This makes using a circular polarizer much easier. C) The zoom is also internal, so the the length of the lens doesn't change as you zoom in or out. D)It has the HSM motor, so the auto focus is fast and silent. My first impression of this lens it that it is huge!! As you can see in the picture above, it makes my Nikon D300 look like a toy. This lens is is 13" long with the lens hood, weighs over 3lbs and takes an 82mm filter. Being from the EX line, the build quality is excellent. It feels very solid in the hand and the adjustment rings feel very smooth. I haven't had of a chance to use it yet, but I will be giving it a proper work out next week in Costa Rica! I have heard nothing but good things about the performance of this lens, so I am excited to get it out in the field. I also bought the matching 1.4X tc, so that will give me an effective focal length of 420mm @ F/5.6. If you are interested in learning more about this lens, you can visit the Sigma website at http://www.sigma-photo.com/lenses/lenses_all_details.asp?id=3273&navigator=3. Stay tuned for some image samples!

Blog, Bells, and Babble

Blog- Welcome to the the first post on my blog! Those of you who know me probably find it pretty funny that I am writing a blog, considering that I just found out what a blog was about two months ago! My original intent was to write about our upcoming trip to Costa Rica; I thought it would be a fun way of documenting the trip. Since then, it's kind of evolved into more of a general blog about my biggest passion-Photography.

Bells- ..as in wedding! The reason that we are going to Costa Rica in the first place is for my sister-in-law's wedding. We are super excited for them. They are going to be great together.

Babble- About photography! This is what I will be doing here, so please feel free to participate and check back often.