Costa Rican Howler Monkeys

[Robert Watcher]

Don's wonderful recent image of a mother and baby Howler Monkey - came at a time when my wife and I are working on our first book of our travels in Costa Rica and Nicaragua (those countries so far) - - - and basically will be a hard copy of specific posts that Anne made.

This 80 page book is about our stay at Cahuita on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. And of course it has to include a couple of shots of the popular Howler Monkeys. As I mentioned on Don's thead, I'm definitely not a wildlife photographer - but more of a hack. I take whatever is in front of me - at whatever time of day is convenient - and crop to the extreme to get a shot close enough to use. I simply am not one who has the patience to stalk the animals to get that perfect shot, or the commitment to that genre. I far more enjoy it when others do that successfully.

But I am in those countries on a photo adventure of my own and I am required (by Anne) to provide imagery that supports her daily posts on the Journal - - - and so I do end up having tons of wildlife and animal imagery as a result.

So on the monkey theme - here are some of my images from the past few years.

1 ) Cahuita, Costa Rica - this fellow was sitting high up in the roof of the jungle trees along the coastline, requiring a full 600mm equivalent reach and cropping. Harsh background highlights are a result of shooting at 11:45AM noon time. High ISO and slow shutter speeds from them being in dark jungle areas.

Olympus E-3 : 70-300 f4/5.6 @ 300mm (600mm equivalent) : f5.6 @ 1/100'th : 800 ISO

2 ) Cahuita, Costa Rica - he was moving swiftly through the trees as evidenced by a couple of his feet and his tail being blurred even at 1/250'th second exposure. Harsh background highlights are a result of shooting around noon time. High ISO and slow shutter speeds from them being in dark jungle areas.

Olympus E-3 : 70-300 f4/5.6 @ 125mm (250mm equivalent) : f4.5 @ 1/250'th : 800 ISO

[Don Cohen]

Well, regardless of you're considering yourself a "hack" these are quite respectable wildlife images!!

Thanks for sharing them!

[Robert Watcher]

3 ) Capuchin Monkey at Cahuita, Costa Rica - My wild buddy sat at a safe distance along the sandy coastline - captively watching as I moved around him and talked to him. Limited DOF with the 600mm equivalent lens, creates issues with nose and eyes not both being in perfect focus, and with his movement it was difficult to consistently nail his eyes and not some other part of his face.

Olympus E-3 : 70-300 f4/5.6 @ 300mm (600mm equivalent) : f5.6 @ 1/160'th : 400 ISO

4 ) Capuchin Monkey at Cahuita, Costa Rica- My wild buddy sat at a safe distance along the sandy coastline - captively watching as I moved around him and talked to him.

Olympus E-3 : 70-300 f4/5.6 @ 70mm (140mm equivalent) : f4 @ 1/250'th : 400 ISO

[Don Cohen]

Well, it turns out you might just be a wildlife photographer after all! Two more captivating shots!

[Robert Watcher]

5 ) Mantled Howler Nicaragua 2011 - As we were coming home from a swim at the Laguna we heard the sounds of howlers overhead and stopped so I could attempt to take a shot or two. It was quite late in the evening (6:18PM) and I was forced to use 3200 ISO which pushes my E-3 to the boundaries. An f2.8 lens would have provided 2 more stops of ISO - but I haven't heard of a 600mm f2.8 yet (well there is the 300mm f2.8 Oly lens at $7,000). A 600 f4 on a Canon or Nikon full frame camera, would have given me 1600 ISO which would have been better.

Olympus E-3 : 70-300 f4/5.6 @ 252mm (504mm equivalent) : f5.5 @ 1/250'th : 3200 ISO

[Robert Watcher]

6 ) This was my first encounter with a Howler in Costa Rica just outside Monteverde National Park. Anne and I hadn't heard of such a monkey and at first thought it was a black panther sleeking its way through the trees. The expression was incredible and scary when I looked at the frame on my computer. It was also when I realized how limited I was with my lens selection of a 300mm equivalent. In order to get close enough to show the impact of the growl, I cropped this to basically a web size of around 900 pixels from the full frame.

Nikon D40 : 18-200 lens @ 200mm (300mm equivalent) : f5.6 @ 1/200'th : 200 ISO

[Robert Watcher]

Originally Posted by Don Cohen

Well, it turns out you might just be a wildlife photographer after all! Two more captivating shots!

Thank you Don for your comments.

I definitely am a photographer and a pretty experienced if not capable one - - - but for some reason this sort of imagery as well as landscape, really isn't my cup of tea. I do love looking at wonderful images of such subject matter though.

I simply am not one who has the patience to stalk the animals to get that perfect shot, or the commitment to that genre.

[Asher Kelman]

Rob,

I so appreciate these pictures. This is great. you and don have really made my week!

Now what do you think is available in a faster lens for the Olympus? I like the idea of a lightweight 600 mm equivalent reach but it would be nice to be faster.

Asher

[Robert Watcher]

In the cheap light weight range - really nothing faster. I personally really like the Olympus 70-300 even though at the long end it is f5.6. I seldom use my 50-200SWD f2.8/3.5 - especially when traveling.

The 50-200SWD could be paired with a 1.4 convertor and would then provide a 560mm focal length with a slightly faster f4.9 at the full length. While this combo may be a bit better image quality than the 70-300 wide open, it wouldn't be that much faster really.

Then if you have the bucks there is the single focal length option of a 300mm f2.8 - although that may set you back $7,000 (mind you just a tad more than the one stop slower Canon 600mm f4).

And a really great zoom lens that I would love to own would be the 90-250 f2.8. Still in around $6,300, but the versatility of a 180 to 500mm zoom range. With a 1.4 convertor, you'd have a 700mm equivalent f4.

The other lens used by some photographers who want reach with their Olympus gear, is the Sigma 50-500 for an equivalent reach of up to 1000mm. You won't gain on speed though with it's F4.0-6.3 range. You can get a used one for around $1,000 which makes the Olympus 70-300 at $350.00 an INCREDIBLE BUY.

[Asher Kelman]

I wonder what the comparative prices are with the APS-C sized sensors. It would seem that reasonably priced easy lenses could easily leverage the large sensors to take away from the 4/3 market.

However, Robert, your pictures show the excellent practicality of the Olympus 70-300 even at f5.6. I guess it's now all a matter of how well newer bodies can deal with higher iSO and cut the noise.

Asher

[Don Ferguson Jr.]

Robert, nice shots and I enjoyed viewing them.
Don

[Robert Watcher]

Anne had a list of Central American animals she was hoping to see. Actually the Sloth was number one on her list - - - and we were only able to find this one in all of our trecks through Costa Rica over 2 years. It was very difficult to see as it was perched high high up at the top of the tree line. It initially just looked like a nest of some sort and then we saw that it was a ball of fur when viewing from underneath. I then backed up and got off the path a bit to find this angle not so straight up - where I could see its face. It took the full reach of the 600mm to get the shot.

Another exilerating experience that we weren't expecting to have - - - was an encounter with a river full of crocs, while we walked along a jungle path. This wasn't like a zoo and there were no fences or guardrails. We were about a mile in along the river where the next person to walk through may be in an hour or more. When we walked up to the rivers edge, 10 to 20 feet out from our feet were croc heads popping up out of the water and farther down the banks would be many crocs basking in the sun on dry land. It felt pretty crazy being in that type of situation. But apparently locals come and tease, play and feed some of them from time to time, to impress any tourists driving by the bridge up by the highway.

This guy popped up about 10 feet from Anne's feet.

[Don Cohen]

Cool photos!

The sloth shot really got my attention, as the face looks so different from those I've seen in Costa Rica. I did some checking, and yours is most likely the Two-toed sloth. I've seen those on occasion, but much more commonly see the Three-toed, whose face is quite a bit different.

Those American Crocodiles are very impressive creatures! Definitely get your attention when you're that close to them!

[Robert Watcher]

Anne presumed that it was a Three-toed Sloth. I just checked a write up from a zoo about the differences between the twotypes, and it stated;

The difference between two and three toed sloths (besides the number of digits) are: Three-toed sloths have nine vertebrae, they have a small tail, and their forelegs are substantially longer than the rear ones, while two-toed sloths have six or seven vertebrae, they do not have tails, and their front and back limbs are closer to the same size.

There wasn't a mention of the face. And of course with the position of the sloth I shot all curled up - it's impossible for me to tell how long the legs are or how many vertabrae it has - or more effortlelly, count the number of toes.

A Google Image search had many of both kinds - but I guess I'm just not skilled enough to see where the differences are. Is there something specific that you are using to identify it as a Two-toed Sloth?


--------------------------------------------


EDIT : I think that you may be right Don. I just found further info when searching facial differences. One article stated that the Two-toed sloth has "no mask on the face and no tail." The image I have does not appear to have a mask on the face does it.

Another - "Two-toed sloths like to sleep in tangles of lianas in trees. A two-toed in a tangle is difficult to see, and then once located, hard to catch, because they wake up when the vines shake and either start to move away or face the opponent, attacking by slashing with claws, grasping and pulling the offender closer to be bitten. Two-toes have two sharp pointed teeth in each of their jaws. These teeth look like, but are not, canines."

To me it looks like this one is living in those type of coniditions and may have sharp pointed teeth.
Onse site says that they are a bigger animal than the Three-toed by 2 KG on average - - - of course that was impossible to tell from the distance he was from us.

Thanks for your insight.

[Don Cohen]

Thanks. I am definitely no sloth expert, but I did a double-take when I saw the face on your sloth - it was completely different from those I have seen and shot, which I knew to be 3-toed sloths (I had the toes in the pictures!).

In fact, that sloth's face made me think of the "morlocks" from the old version of The Time Machine:

[Robert Watcher]

Originally Posted by Don Cohen

Thanks. I am definitely no sloth expert, but I did a double-take when I saw the face on your sloth - it was completely different from those I have seen and shot, which I knew to be 3-toed sloths (I had the toes in the pictures!).

In fact, that sloth's face made me think of the "morlocks" from the old version of The Time Machine:

That's funny. It is amazing how many sci-fi creations have obviously been inspired by features and characteristics of the animal world.

[Robert Watcher]

Over the weekend, we (Anne and I) have finished our first book based on Anne's daily journal posts on the Travel Virgins website. It is specifically the Caribbean town of Cahuita Costa Rica. Anne's writing slant has more to do with travel than photography - and so this book is kind of a travel book.

I am not distributing the hard copy Blurb book until I receive a printed copy and am sure that the image quality is fine. A couple of years ago, I had a test book made and realized that I should have sharpened the images better. This time I have applied Nic Output sharpening and hope that it is not too much - - - otherwise I will be redoing the images without it and dropping them back into the layout and reuploading to Blurb. In anticipation of such a scenario, I have saved each image as a PDF file with all layers in tact.

If you are curious or would like to see our book in PDF format - I have uploaded a copy to our Travel Virgins website that you are free to download. Keep in mind that it is a 9MB file so will take a minute or two to download. Best to save to your computer, instead of downloading it from my site each time you want to view it.

Downloads were popular and all were taken fast so that option is now closed. See following post. ADK

This pdf is not really an ebook - but is screen shots taken of each spread, that have been combined into the pdf file. I intend to provide proper ebooks of each of the books over time.

Being this is our first attempt, it probably is a little rough around the edges - and in keeping with our way of doing things, has a more simplistic layout. Please let us know what you think. Thanks.

9MB PDF Download of Cauita Book:



http://store.blurb.com/ebooks/286668-cahuita-costa-rica



----

[Robert Watcher]

I had many downloads of the free pdf over the last couple of days. If you click today though, you will find the link is dead. I have the e-book available at Blurb so that I can distribute it as an alternative to the costlier hard copy book. The link to the Cahuita e-book is now here - http://store.blurb.com/ebooks/286668-cahuita-costa-rica . Do keep in mind that it is no longer free though. Those who downloaded over the last couple days got a little Free gift that is no longer available.