Off to Panama! What about all that gear!? | Travel Tips & Finding your way around South America

[Music] do [Music] [Music] hi guys welcome back to the bird photography show with glenn bardley hello and me jan wagoner we hope you guys enjoyed the last episode where we talked all about computers hopefully you picked up a few tips whether you're buying a new computer or maybe some performance tips for making your computer a little faster but hopefully you learned a few things and as always thanks for subscribing and supporting our coffee addiction so glenn you're going to panama next week what is it about south america that fascinates you so much you've really become an expert in that neo-tropical birding scene i'm definitely mostly known for my sort of south america portfolio and it's just a region that i really have come to love i first traveled there about 20 years ago and just fell in love with some of the birds all the hummingbirds the tannagers the toucans just some amazing families of birds tons of diversity there's more than 3 000 species of birds in south america so there's lots to keep you busy and i've just had so many good experiences down there that it just keeps me going back for more yeah it sounds like there's a few more birds to photograph um after literally years of not traveling you picked panama as your first location to go back what's so special about panama why panama it's like this sort of gateway between you know costa rica and sort of the rest of central america and then going down into south america sort of panama for those of you who south american geography is not great it's sort of as it enter as it heads south it enters into colombia which is of course the country in the world that has the most birds of all and so panama is this nice mix where you get a lot of your familiar kind of central american species but it also starts to get some of those uh you know south americans birds coming up in there there's almost a thousand species of birds in panama so quite diverse for such a small country so yeah i'm really looking forward to getting down there and getting to work so are there some particular targets that you have there like did you just pick it for the diversity or is there a few birds you say yeah i'm gonna have to nail those to make it a successful trip there's one that's actually a monotypic genus it's a single species and this gene is called the ren thrush or the zeledonia so that would be a nice one to pick up it only lives in in costa rica and panama i'm hoping to find it when i go up into the highlands in panama another one i'm really hoping to track down because you probably can relate to this yen when you've seen a bird well but you didn't get a good photo of it actually it actually haunts it haunts you more like you've you were there you saw it you just didn't get a shot so many years ago when i was in costa rica i saw this beautiful oscillated ant bird it's this stunning species of ant bird and it's just haunted me ever since so panama is is meant to be quite a good a good place for it so i'm hoping that when i get back i'll be able to show you guys some good shots and hopefully some video as well of a oscillated ant bird and you know what's even worse i'm sure our viewers can relate to that as well if you've actually seen the bird in your viewfinder in a good pose and you were just too slow to hit the shutter button and you only get like the bum shot but when you close your eyes you're seeing like the perfect pose right in front of you i still have a few of those memories that uh i have to revisit from time to time but it's not fun yeah that's that's the next level for sure like it's something about like if you're after a bird and you don't even find it you don't even hear it it's just not there you can kind of live with that but when it was there and you just didn't get the shot it just it just it really hurts so yeah there's some there's a bunch of other birds of course uh black crowned ant pitta would be amazing to get some good shots of um let me think what else is on my hummingbirds well yeah there definitely are there's a lot of species of hummingbirds in panama but as i sort of mentioned many of them have already photographed elsewhere but there are there are a few sort of specific ones that are sort of regional endemics uh snowy bellied hummingbird is supposedly very common in panama i've never seen it anywhere else so that would be nice um there's a few others that i'm sure i'll come back with some some shots but i'm not really i'm not really like focusing on hummingbirds on this trip for sure so when you when you come back we definitely expect to see a photo of that snowy belly hummingbird okay i'll do my best i'll do my best i think that one i can that one i can pretty much guarantee though all right then the end bird as well of course well we'll see what we can do that's certainly going to try let me tell you about what it's like photographing ant birds though because they follow around army ant swarms so army ants raid out through the forest and the these ant birds follow these swarms and as the ants are raiding around they scare other insects and cockroaches and frogs and everything else is like trying to get out of the way of these army ants and the birds are just sitting there like oh thanks for the free meal and they just drop down so if you find a good army ant swarm there's some of these birds like the oscillated ant bird that that's where you're gonna find them you're probably not going to find them anywhere else now what does that mean as a photographer it means you have to be in there with all the ants crawling up your legs you know anything you touch because the ants yeah the ants go up the trees they go everywhere so even if you if you're like leaning up against a tree next thing you know there's ants on you and they're mean they'll bite you so it's it's it can be very dense too like the ants go wherever they want so it can be like super dense foliage and like you can see kind of where the birds are but you can't find a window so it is it or it can be very challenging but if you hit just the right spot and you find a swarm and it's kind of open forest that's that's really what i'm hoping for down there so you already mentioned the conditions a little bit but i guess all of us kind of expect dark rainforest conditions high eyes oh and then glenn running in the middle of an ant swarm with a big 600 millimeter lens on his shoulder it seems like it's pretty challenging to even maneuver that big lens around would you say that's true oh for sure for sure because that's again the thing like you see these photos and you don't understand that like literally go you could do this at home take your hands like this and imagine looking through that because that's literally what you're trying to do to find a window to get the bird and hopefully it sits there for long enough that you can find a little window to shoot through and it can be so frustrating when you just can't line the bird up it's it's there it's close to you it's it's not easy these aren't birds that are coming to feeders or out in the open these are these are challenging understory conditions so uh you have to get lucky to a certain extent as well because the birds are going to do what they're going to do so you must be pretty excited that now you can take your r5 into the rainforest with a great autofocus the highest all capabilities because i can't even imagine what it would have been like with a 7d mark ii in those kind of and swarm middle of the rainforest conditions it is very dark at times and if it's if it's not dark it probably means you're dealing with really patchy light and that can be even more challenging so the ability now to shoot comfortably at 3200 6400 12800 it's just i couldn't have even imagined that in you know two three years ago with with my old camera so with our new workflow with dxo our pro sets and our normal photoshop editing workflow you might even get away with like 25 600 or even higher iso one would think like if in an emergency kind of situation you could probably push it that far probably but honestly i don't even know if i can make my brain like turn it that far like it's like it's like going even even 12 800 i'm kind of having to be like oh is this okay you know but it it is you know like we've both done testing and it totally is i've never been to south america have you guys do you have a favorite place down there let us know in the comments so for us who would love to go to south america but i've never actually been and might be a little bit unsure what it's like give like some traveling tips some advice so first of all most of south america with the exception of brazil where portuguese is the main language everywhere else speaks spanish so if you're gonna go down there by yourself especially if you're gonna try to do like a self-guided tour and rent a car and stuff like that i mean you're gonna really wanna learn some spanish i i don't think i'd feel comfortable just going off on my own and not speaking any spanish um so that would be my number one tip for sure and if you don't know any spanish then you're probably gonna be better off hiring a local guide to take you around um like we talked about in one of our past episodes i think it was episode six where we talked about you know how we prepare for trips and stuff you can reference that but definitely you know whenever you're going to go do bird photography somewhere else whether it's south america or africa or antarctica it doesn't matter you need to do your homework you need to do your research you need to know the birds as well as possible without actually being there so you need to study your field guides do lots of uh research online and know the birds that you're after where you're likely to find them so that is again invaluable going with someone who's already put in the time on the ground and done all the work to suss out the best spots with the best locations with the best birds it makes a lot of sense then in like a 10 day or a 2 week trip you can be super successful and get great shots whereas if you went on your own it could be a disaster i remember all your old travel vlogs i don't know if you guys seen it but it's still on glenn's youtube channel and it looks pretty rough at times like not necessarily the people or anything but just the environment the roads it's raining it's all washed out you get bogged so is it generally safe like it doesn't never looked like you had any real trouble or anything but it looks quite adventurous at times yeah well yeah i've i've been very lucky but i also as i mentioned do my homework and i i practice common sense um sort of travel safety stuff and i've never had any issues i remember going to costa rica the first time and being like oh yeah it's like uh you know only like 50 kilometers between here and there that'll take like an hour and then you're like four hours later you're not even there yet because yeah the roads can be can be definitely a much more of an adventure so but that's all part of the fun you know that's all part of the challenge that's all part of the journey and um yeah but best to do your homework before you show up with a toyota yaris d do you generally have phone reception there or is it like australia where you leave the big city a minute later no reception it's all dead it's hit and miss in the andes for sure i mean if you get in the wrong little valley where there's no cell towers yeah you could definitely but overall you know every year that goes by i used i mean when i first started traveling there was no wi-fi nobody had smart phones you'd have to go to the internet cafes in town and you know but now usually like when i get down there the first thing i'll do is grab a chip for my phone pop it in get it like a data plan for a month or whatever and i mean in canada we pay some of the highest sell rates in the world so it's actually like cheaper down there to have a data plan yeah and yeah it's not going to be perfect and work everywhere but overall for what i need it for for just sort of like whatsapp and you know google maps and stuff like that it should be fine so it sounds actually better than down here because whenever we try to talk on the phone when i'm on the road it just doesn't work every two seconds i'm cutting out um anyways let's talk a little bit about traveling as a photographer i think we've all experienced the pain you have about 100 kilos of gear and you all want to put it into one backpack and the allowance is like seven kilos for your carry-on so how do you do it i know you take a lot of gear down there especially when you teach workshops you take a hundred tripods with you literally so how do you do it okay so for the for the tours i've always kind of had this those tr those those tripods are pretty cheap so over the years i've deposited them in many countries um so i literally have i have 12 in ecuador i have 12 in columbia i have 12 in brazil i have 12 in costa rica i have them all over the place because it's it's not worth flying them back and forth if it's like an extra bag of weight it's better just to leave them there and then you have to worry about it again so i just leave those tripods wherever um but as far as my normal gear goes luckily so the air the carry-on restrictions are different in different parts of the world i know like africa and europe is very restrictive i'm not sure about australia um but usually i believe here what is it 10 kilos i think you're allowed to have your main one and you're allowed to have two like a carry-on and a personal item so for me my carry-on is my backpack that has all of my main lenses and cameras and everything in it it is not 10 kilos it is way more than that but i've very rarely had people weigh it the other bag that i carry on is like a smaller one it definitely does not fit in their little sizing thing but again i haven't had too many too many people um harass me about it but the key with that one is it has wheels and like one of those handles that pulls up so that way when i'm in the airports and stuff and like if you have a big layover and you're walking around doing stuff i take my backpack and i put it on top of that one and then i have this like uh bungee cord thing and then i can roll it around and not have to be like because the backpack as we mentioned is not 10 kilos it's probably more like 20 kilos typically on almost plus my available i've always been able to kind of bring what i need yeah i had issues a couple times the first time was actually in norway in oslo at the airport and the guy just is like no you can grab this lens by the foot and swing it around and like kill people and so i had to talk to him for like 15 minutes and he's like no you have to check it and outside i'm seeing the people like dropping the suitcases on the field and falling out of the plane i'm like i really don't want to check it and then eventually he let me through and in australia it's pretty restrictive it's usually seven kilos and half the time they make you weigh it and you just have to like just try and sneak through somehow but for me the main tip is with the really big lens and since i've done that i don't have trouble anymore i don't put the lens hood in my backpack and i actually removed the foot since that experience in norway at the airport so the lens is a lot flatter and doesn't have to shape with the handle like a rocket launcher kind of thing yeah and since then i've gone through without problems really and it actually makes your backpack a lot flatter because usually when you have the foot on the end the hood it's bulging a fair bit at the top and what i usually do with the hood actually slide it on top of my tripod legs that's exactly right and then stuff a lot of underwear socks whatever right into the middle of the hood and i don't even have a hard case and there was never any issues with the hood if you ever do have a gate agent who is asking you to check your bag the most important thing is to just be super friendly super calm never get excited or certainly don't ever sound angry because you have to realize like this person is just doing their job that the airline told them to do that's exactly my experience whenever i got pulled up it's an uncomfortable lengthy discussion but in the end they usually say okay this time but not next time and you're like okay and then you get through and i think another trick is obviously just put it on like one shoulder and just happy smile walk like nothing like oh look at that light back i can just sling it around like that the other thing you can do sometimes if you want to be uh very friendly with a flight attendant you can say because they always have like a storage area at the front of the plane for their own stuff and i've definitely many times ask them to set it in there and then you just get it when you're going off the plane all right guys so now let's talk about when you're going on a trip a few things that you really don't want to leave at home and by that i mean some of our top essential travel items so for me you know it starts with the trip itself so i love after doing so many trips especially like overnight long flights i mean toronto to brazil is like 10 hours um toronto to santiago chile 10 hours 11 hours i couldn't be without my nice bose noise canceling headphones a nice little travel pillow and if it's an overnight flight i like my i like my sleeping mask so i can fall asleep and drool on the person next to me shoulder so that's definitely some good very nice sensors very nice mental picture there yeah yeah okay so that's one for me what about you let's let's throw it back to you yeah yeah definitely i like to have some sort of noise-cancelling headphones as well but you could even have little earbuds like this if you don't want to go really expensive there's some pretty good options now and for me i usually just focus on some key things i need in the field i usually take like this tiny little travel towel with me like microfiber that actually folds up to quite decent size even if you fall into like a little stream or something you can have that have that with you so i think some of these things can be quite handy to just have in your backpack and then i found this pair of like foldable clippers a few years ago that i thought was pretty handy that faults are pretty small and when you need to do a setup or you need to cut something you can take these and i always take some cable ties with me as well because it's not just if i want to do a setup at a feeder or something but also if something breaks your back breaks like it's very very good items to have with you definitely yeah i always have a little sort of tupperware with like useful little items just generic random stuff even like i have like the things of two-part epoxy for fixing things and because yeah things break i mean on especially on longer trips where you're pushing your gear to the limits things break um another thing that i think is indispensable on a trip like this like i'm about to go on is sort of good appropriate footwear sometimes you see people and they're just like have you know not the best footwear i just you know find a good pair of waterproof hiking boots that fits your feet well and that's comfortable and go with those and that's probably what i would recommend and would always not be without so what backpack do you actually take when traveling as you carry on do you just take one backpack or do you take maybe two like a smaller one and the bigger one or how do you do that yeah that's a good point so so my main backpack i've always i've always had uh low pro backpacks i've found them to be really good bags and so i have a i think it's a pro trekker 450 i think and the top part comes off and is actually the fanny pack that i typically use but that usually goes gets checked so i just have the main bag when i go on the flight and inside of that i actually take all of the dividers out oh yeah because i can fit way more stuff in there and what i like to do is these are some little travel pouches that a company called lens coat makes all of my equipment the lenses the camera bodies even my binoculars is wrapped up in these and so i can put everything in there and you can fit way more stuff without dividers so that's a maybe a useful tip for some people now that's awesome i've got a few of those as well and when i travel i used to use a low pro as well i think i had like a compute tracker but they they used to make like a large version of it that would just fit my 600 but they don't make it anymore and i literally had that backpack for like i don't know 10 or 15 years but then eventually the zippers just broke because i always cramped my big 600 in there and it wasn't really made for but that was really good but recently i just got a couple f-stop backpacks this one i thought i don't really need it why do i need a small backpack but this has become my favorite backpack especially now with the 100 to 500 i can just pop it on i could still fit my drone in here if i needed to as well it's a really nice little light backpack that's like i think it's a guru and it's like 30 liters or something and the cool thing is first of all they're made so they're always lying on the front you never have to lie them down on the back right so your back gets never wet and then they have these departments inside and you can buy different ones right they're not pre-made you can just buy separate icu units and design them whichever way you want and then they're closest like that you put that on your back that's really cool and so that's my favorite one to just get around and then for travel i've gotten this one i haven't actually traveled with it yet but i will very soon so it's just like a larger version i think this is like it's hard to pronounce it's spelled a a j n a maybe you want to give that a go ajna that's what i would have said as well something like ashna or something like that so let's go with that and same thing just a larger version with a bigger icu unit inside and that should still just fit my 600 what i like as well to have a lot of space at the top so i actually have a third one of these as well that fits my 600 100 to 500 and the drone so they've been very flexible and very good for me and that's what i'm going with at the moment nice and yeah as you mentioned i i do often also bring another small lightweight backpack because when i'm actually out in the field i don't want that huge backpack typically i want like a smaller thing with just like some water and some snacks and my rain cover and those kinds of things okay so my last essential item which is definitely a must-have is a good uh we were all waiting for the fanny pack here obviously i know i know it's true that's true but i've i've already spout spouted about the joy of having a wonderful fanny pack and so you guys all know that already so i thought i'd mix it up okay these sweet babies from swarovski are definitely the best binoculars i've ever seen or used they're so nice these are the new nl pure uh ones from swarovski they're incredible they're like like i don't even know how they do this like that that this like contour doesn't mess up the optics of it it literally feels like it's just molded to fit your hand they're so nice and they actually have this little um i don't know if i'm gonna use this all the time i was just but i don't want to ask about it i was just going to say what what's that so it's they call it a forehead rest and so basically it just gives you because these are 10 10 times one so they're quite a bit of magnification and sometimes when you're like i guess one of the ideas is that you can you can use them with one hand and you can kind of push the forehead rest up so you're like super hello everybody you can be really stable i like i said i i it's sort of a new product i think they're trying out and i'm going to try it on this trip and see if i like it but it just pops off if you don't want to use it you just pull it off but these are amazing so very happy to have these beautiful binoculars and whether you buy something that extravagant or you know just a good quality pair having a good pair of binoculars in the field is a must now that we talked so much about what to take what's like items you would say don't take you don't need them you're just gonna weigh down your bags and it actually makes travel uncomfortable like i remember leading a workshop and someone literally rolled up there and had like 35 lenses in their backpack that they're all just bought basically so i'm like yeah maybe that's not the ideal way to go especially when you're flying like you want to pack as light as possible and find lenses that do a lot of jobs in the one lens like you don't want to take eight different prime lenses that cover you from like 16 to 70 millimeters it's probably better to take a zoom but we're both gonna have our 600 we're going to have a mid-range zoom from either 100 to 400 for you the 100 to 500 and a wide angle and that's all you need like for us maybe if you were like doing all kinds of other wildlife photography maybe you threw on a macro lens too but i can't see ever traveling with more than three or most four lenses um as far as what i think a lot of people will get hung up on bringing too much of is too many heavy clothing items like if you're traveling a lot you should have lightweight kind of hiking uh technical fabric types of clothes that are sort of can be layered and are multi-purpose and you can wash them and dry them quickly and you you don't need to bring all the clothes you need for a three-week trip you can do laundry and just have stuff that dries quickly and so for me like my clothes could literally probably fit in a small backpack like this and all the rest is gear so i don't waste space or weight on clothes that's the funniest thing isn't it with photographers we always say oh we travel with so much stuff but if we actually didn't travel with any photography stuff we could literally have like one tiny little bag as a carry-on and traveling would never be a problem totally totally yeah if you took all the gear out it's like one carry-on little bag so i think that wraps up today's episode about traveling we're really excited to see what glenn's going to be able to photograph in panama and how the trip goes how you go with the new memory cards that you're trying out so there's a lot of things you will report back to us once you're back here and like always we thank all of you for subscribing liking and sharing the video and also we still like our coffee so whoever bought us a coffee already we really appreciate that and i think we can say we see you in the next video bye guys see you next time guys wish me luck in panama [Music]

Channel: Jan Wegener

Views: 6,643

Keywords: bird photography, jan wegener, birding, wildlife photography, which camera to buy, bird photography equipment, bird photography gear, birding gear, Canon EOS R5, animal eye AF, animal eye autofocus, canon mirrorless, RF 100-500, Canon RF 100-500 L IS, A1 vs R5, rolling shutter, autofocus settings, travel photography, panama, south america, bird photography in south america, carry-on restrictions, how to pack your gear, airline restrictions, rainforest photography, high iso

Id: fcGN-NMN8_8

Length: 27min 24sec (1644 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 03 2021