Click to see the photo gallery!

One of the fun things about living in a different state is all of the new travel opportunities. Not only are there tons of fun road trips to be had, but a lot of interesting places are now a lot closer and cheaper. So when we found a killer deal on tickets to Costa Rica for spring break, we jumped on it. We had to drive four hours south to Miami to catch a plane run by some airline that we’d never heard of (TACA, the national airline of El Salvador), but doing so saved us a bunch of money… and we made it back in one piece!

We rented the cheapest 4×4 we could find, a tiny little SUV called a Suzuki Jimny. It turned out to be perfect as it had just enough room for me, Melanie, and our luggage. While gutless and bumpy, it always made us smile with its Tonka truck looks.

First we headed up to a town called La Fortuna (map) near the Arenal volcano, pictured above. The volcano is fairly active but not TOO active; we saw a bit of steam in the day and some brief lava flows at night. There was a ton of stuff to do in this area, and we chose some more adventurous options including whitewater rafting and ziplines. Both were amazingly fun. We also went on a really nice walk at Arenal Hanging Bridges, which has a series of trails and suspension bridges through the rain forest. We saw all kinds of flora and fauna, including a sloth and monkeys. The place we stayed, Hotel El Silencio de Campo, was excellent as well. We would have liked to stay a lot longer, but we also wanted to include the beaches in our trip, so we headed off after a few days.

Our next stop was an overnight in Jaco (map), which is a touristy and Americanized town on the Pacific. We stayed there just as a halfway point to our final destination and didn’t do anything in the town, but we really liked the place we stayed, Aparhotel Vista Pacifico. It is perched up on a hill overlooking Jaco and the Pacific, and had a really nice vibe to it. It was really cheap as well.

After Jaco we headed through palm orchards down to Dominical (map), where we stayed a few nights and enjoyed the beaches. Not only was the sand soft and the water bathtub worthy, we had the beaches pretty much all to ourselves. Unfortunately the waves didn’t make for very good swimming or snorkeling, so don’t count on Costa Rica for those activities. But we still had a lot of fun walking, wading, finding cool sea shells, and seeing crabs, birds, lizards, and spectacular views.

The town of Dominical was small and quiet, which we liked. Just enough stuff, like a grocery store and a burger joint, but not touristy or crowded. We stayed at another excellent place, Shelter from the Storm. (Thanks TripAdvisor.com for helping us find all these great places to stay and things to do.)

Overall this was one of our favorite vacations; the country was beautiful, the people friendly, and there was lots of adventure to be had. Just be sure to avoid touristy areas like Jaco and Manuel Antonio (Quepos). We felt very safe the whole time we were there, had no problem driving around the country with a good map, and language was not a barrier as everybody we encountered spoke at least a little English.

Click here for the photo gallery. The video is below. (After you press play be sure to pick 720p or 1080p if your computer/connection supports it!)

Back in 2008 I wrote that DSLRs were starting to include video features and that these new cameras were set to be hugely popular with the movie-making crowd. Well, it turns out I was right. Indie film makers everywhere are making amazing films with DSLRs, and the professionals are starting to take notice. For example, the upcoming season finale of the Fox show House was shot entirely with a Canon 5DmkII. Yep, that’s right, a major television network used a DSLR camera to film one of their top shows. Pretty incredible considering video on digital cameras started off as more of a “gee-whiz” toy feature than a serious tool.

Last year I was watching this trend develop and watching my old gear collect dust, so I sold most everything and waited for the prices on the new generation of “hybrid” DSLRs to come down. In March I had waited long enough and finally got my brand new toy, a Panasonic DMC-GH1. While Canon’s 7D and T2i were appealing options and are very popular with film makers, I settled on the GH1 because its video is as just as good as any of the Canons, but it also has some very user-friendly features that the Canons are lacking, such as a tilt/swivel LCD and a viewfinder that works while recording videos. It also comes with a video-optimized lens that has silent autofocus and a stepless aperture, which can be very important features when trying to shoot video in the real world rather than on a set.

So far I’m really enjoying the camera. It’s so nice to be able to seamlessly switch between taking photos and shooting video, and I love the flexibility of the camera. The Micro Four Thirds mount means that it can use just about any lens ever made via an inexpensive lens mount adapter. My parents were nice enough to give me some old Canon FD lenses they had sitting in the closet, so I’ve been playing with those and getting some nice results.

The movie below was shot early one March morning in my backyard using the FD lenses as well as the kit lens. The shallow depth of field and fine detail rendered by these lenses makes for some darn nice video. I’m currently working on editing footage from my recent trip to Costa Rica, so stay tuned!

I decided to spend some time fixing up Seansense this weekend. I’ve you’re into geeky WordPress website stuff like me, read on! If not, check out one of those other posts.

In addition to fixing broken links and general maintenance, I also thought it would be a good idea to make Seansense 100% iPhone and iPad compatible. Previously the site was a bit of a mess when viewed on an iPhone, with broken Flash video all over the place and formatting issues everywhere. I fixed all this by playing with CSS style sheets and HTML5 video. Keep reading after the break to learn more.

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