Posts in Category: night
Red-eye
Red-eyed Leaf Frog: Frog Heaven, Sarapiqui, Costa Rica, December 2024 — No visit to the lowlands of Costa Rica would be complete without an encounter with the Red-eyed Leaf Frog…perhaps the most emblematic of non-bird species in the American Tropical Rainforest. I already posted shots from my first daylight encounter with this frog, and of course I had to ask the guide at Frog Heaven to find me one before we were done there. Taken in the light of my Ulanzi Photo Flashlight and from a light-weight travel tripod. Sony a6700. Tamron 50-400 at 382mm. Aperture preferred with my macro modifications. ISO 12800 @ f16 @ 1/15th. -1.3EV Processed in Photomator.
Splendid!
Splendid Leaf Frog: Frog Heaven, Sarapiqui, Costa Rica, December 2024 — I posted a photo of this Splendid Leaf Frog while I was still in Costa Rica in December and told the story of Frog Heaven’s efforts to entice the frog back to their property after it’s nesting tree blew down. They discovered that for it to thrive it needs an elevated spawning pool that has been “poisoned” for other frogs by the secretions of the host tree. No really, poisoned. The tree releases a toxic compound into the water that kills the tadpoles of other species of frogs, but not the tadpoles of the Splendid Leaf Frog. (I am not sure what the frogs do for the tree in return…if anything.) At any rate, Frog Heaven installed 50 gallon drums well off the ground and put cut branches of saplings of the host tree to soak in the water…and the Splendid Leaf Frog has returned. And Splendid it is. Just look at those colors. Taken by the light of my Ulanzi Photo Flashlight. Sony a6700. Tamron 50-400 at 327mm equivalent. Aperture mode with my macro modifications. f11, -1.7 EV, ISO 12800. Processed in Photomator.
Green in the night
Green Basilisk: Frog Heaven, Sarapique, Costa Rica, December 2024 — I posted some daylight photos (if you call under deep canopy in the rain, daylight) a while back…but this was a much larger and more mature individual we found at Frog Heaven on our night walk. Taken by the light of my Ulanzi Photo Flashlight. Sony a6700. Tamron 50-400 at 88 and 600mm equivalents. Program mode with my birds and wildlife modifications. -1.3 EV exposure compensation. Processed in Photomator.
Costa Rica! Denisons of the night 2
Barn Owl: Caño Negro, Costa Rica, December 2024 — As we continued our Owl Prowl along the Caño Negro we came upon this Barn Owl nesting in an old palm near an industrial building of some kind. Again these shots are in the light of a hand-held flashlight/torch. Sony a6700. Tamron 50-400 at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my birds and wildlife modifications. ISO 25600. Processed in Photomator (including noise reduction).
Costa Rica! Denisons of the night 2
Barn Owl: Caño Negro, Costa Rica, December 2024 — As we continued our Owl Prowl along the Caño Negro we came upon this Barn Owl nesting in an old palm near an industrial building of some kind. Again these shots are in the light of a hand-held flashlight/torch. Sony a6700. Tamron 50-400 at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my birds and wildlife modifications. ISO 25600. Processed in Photomator (including noise reduction).
Costa Rica! Denisons of the night
Great Potoo: Caño Negro, Costa Rica, December 2024. We took an Owl Prowl the night we stayed at the Kingfisher Lodge on Caño Negro. Though we got off to a slow start…no owls calling at their regular spots, we found this Great Potoo hunting flying insects under the light at the end of a narrow bridge. Though it looks and acts like a huge nightjar, it actually is part of its own, Potoo family. Sony a6700. Tamron 50-400 at 600 and 402mm equivalents. By the light of a hand-held torch (flashlight). Program with my birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Photomator.
Fleischmann’s Glass Frog
Fleischmann’s Glass Frog: Canopy Lodge, Panama, July 2022 — One of my favorite things to do in the tropics is to go out at night with a flashlight looking for frogs (and whatever else we find). I was particularly eager at the Canopy Lodge in Panama because Glass Frogs live on the property. I have seen a few different species of Glass Frogs in Costa Rica, but only when Cope has brought them in for photography at his place. I was hoping to encounter one “in the wild” in Panama. Tino, my guide at the Lodge, was pretty confident he could find me some around the ponds on the far side of the stream, and indeed he did…three individuals and a couple of egg clusters. Fleischmann’s Glass. Frog is one of the smaller Glass Frogs…at under one inch, the smallest I have seen so far. All Glass Frogs shelter on the underside of leaves in the rain and it had just stopped raining when we went out, so we did a lot of peaking under leaves. These were hiding along the small stream that runs out from the lower swimming pool/pond. The egg cluster was about 20 times as big as either frog. There are fertile eggs in the cluster, and infertile. The tadpoles first meal will be the infertile eggs. The call of this Glass Frog is a sharp “wheeet” and, as you can see from the inflated call sacks, they were calling almost continuously…trying to attract females and defending their small territories. Sony Rx10iv at 330mm to 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications and multi-frame noise reduction. Taken by the light of a led flashlight. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos.
Comet Neowise
I had my first looks at our new comet last night. The sky was not as clear as I might have liked, and the mosquitoes were horrific until it got totally dark, but it was an experience not to be missed. I am not totally happy with any of the photos, but if we have at really clear night anytime before the comet begins to fade, I will put what I learned last night to good use. 🙂 If you are interested in seeing or photographing the comet, I would advise not even trying until the stars are visible. Though it is just barely visible to the naked eye, it is easier to find using pointer stars, which will give you a much better idea of where to look. It is almost exactly half way down to the horizon, in a line that extends down from the lowest star in the bowl of the big dipper…but still much higher in the sky than I anticipated. Sony Rx10iv from 24mm to 300mm equivalent. The first two are manual exposures, 6 seconds, and 10 seconds at f4, auto ISO in the Multi-frame-noise-reduction mode. The wide angle shot is in Auto Low Light mode. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos. Kennebunk Plains Nature Conservancy, Kennebunk, Maine.
The Mystery! ???
I am not going to tell you what this is an image of. Maybe it is obvious. Maybe it is not. Let’s see. 🙂
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in Low Light mode. 4 stacked exposures. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Vegas Nightview
After a long day at our yearly National Sales Meeting, which we always do in the days before the SHOT Show in Vegas, I came back to the hotel and made video loops for the booth for the show, and processed the few pics I had had time to collect during the day. Yesterday I put my little Canon SD100HS in my pocket and did manage a few snaps on trips back and forth to the hotel during set-up for the meeting. After my processing, I looked out the window, pretty much for the first time, and, of course, had to dig out the SX50HS to try a few hand-held night shots of lights along the west end of the Strip.
This is shot is in Hand-held Night Scene Mode. The recorded ISO is 6400, but it is actually three shots taken in rapid sequence and stacked. The Digic 5 processing engine in the SX50HS attempts to process out some of the noise and and some of the camera motion compared to one long exposure, and it seems to do a pretty good job. No one in their right mind, two years ago, would have believed you get this kind of shot with a P&S, especially without a tripod.
I used –1 1/3 EV Exposure Compensation. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. Some work on the highlights and whites.