Tips for photographing in Pantanal

After two months of getting settled in Alaska, we are finally up and running again.  Expect to see regular posts as before!  I just returned from leading a group in the Pantanal region of Brazil.  Our main focus was jaguars, but this area is rich in wildlife of all sorts.  I researched and talked with other photographers before going, but still wished I knew more about what to expect before I went.  So following are a few tips for photographing in this region.  If you get a chance to go, I’d highly recommend the area!

Boats and long lenses.  By far the biggest question everyone had was how big of lens to bring, could you use tripods or monopods, and how close were the jaguars.  Many in our group had lenses around the 180-600mm range.  I’d say 600mm is plenty of power for most of the photography from the boat.  Sure, there are always times you want a longer lens, but the jaguars often were close to the boats and 600mm was plenty.  Another popular set up was bringing a 600mm F5.6 PF, very light and easy to maneuver, along with a 100-400mm for wider shots.  Expect to handhold your lens most of the time.  You can use a monopod on the boats, but they have lots of movement and vibration…most people just resorted to hand holding their lens.  My lenses for this trip were the 24-70mm, 100-400mm and the 400m F2.8 TC (has a 1.4x converter to go out to 560mm).  I loved having my 400mm/560mm, this was perfect for most wildlife encounters.  Some birds were a little far away, but you can get really close to the kingfishers, storks, heron and egrets.  Caiman and capybara are easily approached very close…a 100-400mm works great.  I loved having 400mm 2.8 to blur busy backgrounds and shoot fast with lower ISOs.  This lens is a little heavy, but I had no problems hand holding in the boat.  If I went back I would take the same three lenses.

Bodies.  Fast frame rates, animal and bird eye detection, and pre-release capture were all very handy on this trip.  We photographed numerous ringed kingfishers diving for piranha and pre-release capture was nice to use so you didn’t miss the image.  Animal eye detection worked great…on my Z9 I used wide-area large the most, along with 3D for static subjects and Auto-area for birds in flight.  I really liked having the Z9 and not having to change batteries.  Most days I did fine using one battery…smaller cameras like th Z8, R5 and others needed 2-3 extra batteries during the day.

How many jaguars?  We saw 2-5 a day.  Some boats saw even more, and one half day we didn’t see any.  But the encounters we had were terrific, lots of hunting behavior and one incredible jumping sequence.  The good news is there are tons of other things to photograph while you look for jaguars.

Bugs. There are mosquitos, especially at twilight.  There are plenty of illnesses like malaria and yellow fever in this part of the world, so take precautions.  Some of our folks used headnets, but most used bug repellant.  During the bright daylight hours we hardly saw a bug, only early in the morning and at sunset.

Rain cover.  You will be spending a lot of time on boats searching for wildlife, with no cover if it starts raining.  We always brought a dry bag in the boat to put our camera in if rain started.  We also had rain coats ready to go.  Some boats have enough space to bring a small camera backpack with you in the boat, but I normally brought two bodies with lenses attached along with a dry bag to store them in if the rain started.  We went during July, the dry season, and had no rain during our trip.

Learn a little Portuguese.  I was surprised at how little English was spoken in the area.  If I went again I would try to learn a few more basic words in Portuguese.  This goes a long ways when you are talking with locals and guides.

Tripod? I brought a tripod with gimbal head to use at our lodge and on the drive in.  It was great photographing at our land based lodges using a tripod, but I never took it on the boat.

The Paternal is an amazing area, loaded with lots of photo opportunities.  If you get a chance, I highly recommend going.