Jungle Trip - observations
efoto said:
You can keep dreaming, something tells me you won't be seeing that for Xmas though
...if you never ask...
If you have a tripod and things already, just have the legs set and buy a cheap quick-release system if you haven't already...
The hardware to do that is already available. What's lacking is the time during daylight hours.
Thanks for that link, interesting stuff. How was that trip? I think I would enjoy doing something like that sometime....having a 120-300 zoom with a 1.4x would be nice for that sort of thing I think.
Interestingly, it wasn't a "wow"...it took awhile for us to really appreciate it afterwords. The interesting thing about the Amazon jungle is that the reason for its biodiversity is because it is a resource-
poor environment, so competition is intense: pragmatically, stuff has to specialize to within a niche to have enough food/browse survive. The net result of that is that the larger the critter is, the more square miles of browse he needs to survive/thrive, so it becomes very easy to wander for literally miles and miles and see nothing (because the "local" troop of XYZ monkees happen to be ~20 miles that way for this month). Overall, if one's perception of "jungle" is the 1950's Hollywood Tarzan movie where the bush has a large mammal every 25 feet, you will be very much disappointed.
Thus said, from a photographic perspective, my lessons learned were:
1) BUGS! They're the stuff that you'll find pretty frequently in your walks under the canopy. There's all sorts of wierd stuff, as well as various types of plant life (including a walking tree), colorful fungi, etc. Be prepared for shooting macro work; watch your lens's minimum focus distance.
2) Triple Canopy. Off the rivers, it is dang dark on the rainforest floor, even at high noon (and sunset makes it very dark very quick). Expect to be shooting natural light at ISO 400, and those bugs will need a strobe.
3) Rain protection. Its called a 'rain forest' for a reason. We were generally lucky, but we did have one ~3 hour night hike back from a blind in steady rain. Buy Gore-Tex quality raingear and plan on wearing it a lot. Make sure to sort out how your photo gear is going to be protected/covered, for at least 3-4 hours of walking/standing in non-trivial rain. Also think about & experiment with what you're going to do if you want to photo something while standing/sitting outside in the rain, too, and have a heavy-duty anti-dessicant insert in your camera bag. BTW, add a "ditto" here for having good footgear. You'll want to have a well-broken in pair of trusty Gore-Tex boots. Avoid those that have soles that are slippery over wet tree roots. Also take along one or two collapsable hiking poles too...they improve stability in wet conditions too.
4) Bigger critters: expect to get skunked, for reasons previously mentioned about habitat. Oh well...there's always the next trip.
5) Travel logistics: non-trivial. Expect your baggage allowance to be very limited. For example, we were allowed only one checked bag, and it was not to exceed 20lbs(!). They tolerated a "small" carry-on...figure something around 8"x12"x5" in size, which for me was a medium sized daypack that I used to hold all my camera gear, plus my rain gear. Unless you know how to make special prior arrangements, transporting "big glass" is a challenge. While we were in camp, another guest arrived with a heafty 500mm lens...I have no idea how he was able to transport it there.
6) Telephoto distances...its 150ft straight up to the tree tops, and the more colorful birds don't generally come much lower. The standoff distances will usually be equal to or greater than the distance that I had with this woodpecker, so 300mm worth of reach isn't really enough...a 300mm with a 1.4x and/or with the APS CMOS 1.6x magnifiation is better. Overall, I can very much understand why that other guest brought a 500mm lens...as well as younger family members to carry it around for him. I'd probably see what I could do about getting a 400mm and adding a 1.4x to it on top of the 20D's 1.6x.
7) Wildlife viewing Blinds. They come in three types: pontoon boat (covered or uncovered), treetop, and big raised platform.
Pontoon (covered): you'll get there via the typical powered "narrow 30ft canoe" river transportation (note: the rivers currents are generally wicked fast and deep; always wear your life jacket and don't have your gear tethered to you unless its only a couple of ounces), and then do a boat-to-boat transit. Once onboard, there's chairs next to a "desk" like tabletop to set up a tabletop tripod on, as well as room to get up, walk around, etc. The cover will keep you dry from rain. The covered pontoon probably won't move that much, if at all: some have cable systems that allow it to traverse the width of the river so as to creep up to the clay lick cliffs that will always be on the outer bank.
Pontoon (open): after a river ride, you'll disembark & walk back to an oxbow lake, then board the pontoon boat, where each person will get a 3" tall folding beach chair to sit in. Camera bag betwen the knees, or to your side works OK. Not really all that suitable for a tripod, although I'm sure that some people probably do so. You'll be exposed to the weather as the staff navigates the pontoon boat the length of the oxbow lake and back.
Treetop platforms - they're another 0.5-1 mile walk-in to a big tree with a semi-freestanding 100-130ft tall metal staircases next to it. The staircases come in three varieties: "tipsy", "not as bad as the last one", and "Worse than the last one". Expect a white-knuckle climb. Photo Gear that is free to swing at all will probably make this an even less pleasant experience. At the top, you'll be on a platform built onto the tree, so it will be signifiantly more stable than the staircase was. Topside is suitable for a tripod.
Big Raised Platform - we encountered this for a Taper clay lick. Ours was a 2-3 hour hike in, to a huge wooden structure built a big "T" formation, with the top of the "T" facing the lick, giving everyone a "front row" view from around 30ft above the ground. This viewing area is dry under a covered roof, so its dry, and it is set up for a long night watch: each viewer has their own viewing area with a mattress on the deck, that's covered with a mosquito net. You hike to the blind before sunset, eat dinner at the blind & then nap until (if!) the Tapers arrive. A tripod is a must, since your lighting is limited to just a red spotlight controlled by your guide - - no strobes allowed. Probably no more than a 200mm telephoto is required. Also note that the return hike to camp will always be in the dark, so bring a flashlight that has at least 3-4 hours of good burntime (LCD's).
8) More travel logistics. In general, when going to difficult-to-get-to destinations, the travel & transit costs can eat you alive, not only in cost, but also in time. As such, do seriously consider spending more days in the region so as to amortize your time/cost investment over more actual vacation (vs travel) days. For example, we took 17 days off for our Peru trip, and we spent at least 6 of that purely in-transit, so it really was only an "11 day" vacation, counting rest days between various segments.
For example, after the jungle, we had another week, with which we proceeded to Cuzco to altitude-accilimate and onto the "easy" (25 mile instead of 40 mile) 3.5 day/night hike along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. Again, the "checked" baggage weight limit here was 20lbs...everything else went on your own back; my pack consisted of camera gear, raingear/jacket, lunch, film and 2 liters of water weighed out at 20lbs, so while I had a tripod with us on the trip, it was too much additional weight, so didn't go along with us on the trail.
-hh
