Rangefinder Magazine
December 2004

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Rf Cookbook by Jake Butler
Costa Rica’s Arenal Waterfall

The rainy season brings out vibrant life in the jungles of Central America. The air fills with enough humidity to transform the normally invisible gas into a rolling fog. The mist lingers in the valleys. It hangs in the treetops as a companion to the Howler Monkeys. The forest is filled with the vibrations of its countless inhabitants.

The streams and rivers swell with the daily downpours that arrive like clockwork in the afternoon. The ground seems an animate sponge that gives under footfall, only to fold in on itself and rejuvenate the depression. There is no better time to venture into the rain forests of Costa Rica. Monte Verde and the Cloud Forest are some of the most verdant places on earth. Species of life exist there that are found nowhere else in the world. Volcano Arenal looms majestically in the distance, occasionally giving off the rumble that serves as a reminder of its potent wrath. The waterfalls are world class, and at the height of the season, their full potential is breathtaking. The jungle falls of Costa Rica, surrounded by the lush greenery of the canopy, make for excellent photography.

The water that flows here is pristine. Although you wouldn’t want to drink it without refining first, the clear, cool, refreshing quality of it is undeniably inviting. An afternoon swim should be prescribed to everyone who visits.

This shot was taken during midday, but the mist was diffusing the light fairly evenly. Even stopping down to f/32 wasn’t cutting it for the exposure I wanted. I added four stops of neutral density to the front of my lens and was able to obtain the desired effect of the blurred water at 11⁄2 seconds. Crawling out to the rock I shot this from wasn’t an easy feat.

Most everyone else who had ventured on the hike stood on the bank closest to the trail, but the composition there wasn’t as good. I felt that my camera gear was safe enough in my backpack. I used my tripod as a brace and treaded very lightly to the center of the stream at the bottom of the falls. Only there did I find what I was looking for. I composed with as much flowing water as I could fit in frame with my mid-range telephoto and made two shots total. I didn’t change my exposure for the second one. I simply snapped the second as a safety.

Weeks later, back in the U.S., when I developed nearly 40 rolls of film, I found that the first image taken had a very strange blue light leak in the lower part of the frame. Although Photoshop may have been able to help, major clone tool work would have had to occur to salvage the shot. The second, however, came out flawlessly. The lesson I learned was that even after all the painstaking care and precision taken to shoot fine outdoor photography, especially in foreign countries, one can never know what may accidentally happen to the film during shooting or processing. A safety shot and/or bracketing exposures isn’t a bad idea when you think the image in the viewfinder could possibly be captured beauty.

INGREDIENTS
• Camera: Pentax 645 N II
• Lens: smc P-FA 645 75mm f/2.8
• Film: Kodak E 100VS
• Exposure: 1.5 seconds at f/19
• Filters: 3 f-stops neutral density
• Tripod: Manfrotto Carbon Fiber 3443 tripod w/3030 head