Off on a field trip to Costa Rica

I managed to get a little time to sort through some more of my images from Costa Rica.This first shot is a male Hetaerina titia. All of the species of Hetaerina, as a group, are called Rubyspots because of the dark patch on their wings. in some species the spot is very red and others may be from purple to brown. They all look quite magnificent with the sun lighting them from behind.

One of the things I enjoy in the tropics is traveling through rainforest on mountain slopes up into areas where there is cloud forest. I did not get as many opportunities in Costa Rica as I did in Ecuador. The forests seemed darker to me on this trip and especially when we were on the shaded side of the mountains. The darkness and clouds make everything seem hidden and mysterious. It magnifies the feeling of adventure for me and I can't help but think about what life here must have been like for the first people to live here.Anyway, here are a couple shots that were not the way I originally planned to shoot it but that I liked once I had. I thought about darkening the forest, but I like the hint of green and the feeling of depth that the treetops give me. One note, the monitors I am using to process and view my images are NEC Multisyncs that are profiled and calibrated. Most people set their brightness and contrast at the highest settings which from a photo point of view is too high. I had to turn the target intensity down quite a bit to get my prints to match my monitors. It only took me a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the new settings and then everything looked good. These step wedges should give you an idea if your monitor is too bright or dark.
On the top one you should be able to see 20 distinct shades and on the bottom 26 distinct shades. Brightness and contrast can be tweaked to see all the shades.

I can also tilt my head back and forth and up and down to make the differences between the edges of the shades appear and disappear.A-C and X-Z can either be all one shade or three distinct ones depending on the angle I'm looking at.Edited by Cat Sci, : No reason given.

Yeah, that happens on my laptop, but my NECs are the same from every angle.

In some areas of Costa Rica we encountered lots of Iguanas, primarily the Green Iguana, with the scientific name Iguana iguana. Often they were habituated with humans and seemed to be major tourist attractions. This is one of my pals shooting with a flash diffuser that I made from a $1 plastic salad bowl with some foil tape lining the inside. I made one for each of us before the trip and it allowed us to get shots in the dim forest of fast moving subjects. The white disc you can see in the center is a hemispherical piece of styrofoam painted silver to block the main flash and bounce the light around inside the bowl. This is what I used when I shot the poison dart frogs.

They were very cooperative. What is the "static" flickr thing?

This one was. He thought I had a treat for him. Some would only let you get about 10 feet away before they vamoosed. I had not noticed it until you mentioned it. Maybe it means a single image rather than video.

My image link doesn't show until you click on it. Yours does. The static link may have something to do with that.How did you get the link?

Ned, I'm not sure what you are saying.Are you saying that you can't see my photos until you click on a link?Or are you saying that your own photos don't show without clicking a link? I click an icon for sharing on the Flickr page next to my photo. It gives me 3 options: share, embed, and BBcode. I copy the BBcode link and paste it into the reply box here. There are some url sections in the link that I delete because they just add clutter to the post here.The options for sharing on the Flickr page seem to have changed a week or so ago. There was also an option for HTTP that is not there now.Posting here is a bit of a pain because I have to maintain a Flickr account for my Tanypteryx name that does not have my signature and copyright on the images and a separate flickr account with my real identity and information.

You image link path has to end in an image file format, like .jpgIt looks like you linked to the whole album.Also, if you care at all about anonymity, you may want to be more careful, Paul.Your flickr profile is visible in the link.

Per the discussion in that other thread-Don't mean to disturb any sensibilities so if this is too graphic for public viewing, Tanypteryx, I'll delete it.

I don't think I'll be trying "dragonfly-style" with my girlfriend...

Dragonfly porn is the best.This is Libellula comanche a few years ago at Borax Lake in SE OR. Cop pairs of dragonflies has been one of the most prized photo subjects since I started shooting them. They are usually hard to approach and rarely seen compared to single adults. Getting a good angle is also difficult. Personally I always try to get the wings in focus also.

I first read that as you "would" try it......The accessory genitalia of the males is awesome.

I can think of 69 reasons to explore this ...