Tour Championship Recap, Nikonos V & Costa Rica Rain Photography
Posted by Pat Hathaway | September 7, 2026
The rain is coming down in absolute sheets over the Santa Ana valley this Monday morning. I am sitting on a covered patio in Costa Rica, nursing a scalding mug of local Tarrazú roast, and trying to ignore the rapid-fire text messages currently blowing up my phone. Big Boy Dan has officially reached the bargaining stage of grief.
The East Lake Disaster and Dan’s Pivot
If you followed the FedExCup playoffs last week, you know exactly why Dan is in a tailspin. He had heavily backed Viktor Hovland to make a Sunday charge at the Tour Championship in Atlanta. Instead, Scottie Scheffler casually shot a 66, won the tournament by three strokes, and then told reporters his grand celebration plan was to go eat a cheeseburger and drink a rare beer. Dan was furious. He texted me that Scheffler lacks “killer instinct,” completely ignoring the fact that the man just dominated the entire season.
You can read the actual stroke-gained analytics of Scheffler’s masterclass over at
the official PGA Tour site. As for Dan, he claims he is done with golf. He is currently scrambling to pivot his bankroll to football, frantically researching the
updated California state betting legislation to see if he can legally place parlays before the weekend. I told him to put the phone down and go outside.
Embracing the Deluge with the Nikonos V
I took my own advice. When you are in the tropics and the skies open up, you can either hide indoors or you can adapt your gear. I left the delicate Leica rangefinders safely packed away in dry bags and pulled out a true mechanical beast: the vintage Nikonos V.
For those uninitiated in classic Nikon lore, the Nikonos V is a legendary 35mm film camera originally designed for scuba divers in the 1980s. It is essentially a solid block of bright orange metal, sealed with heavy-duty O-rings. It doesn’t just resist water; it survives shipwrecks. You can dive into the fascinating history of this indestructible camera system over at
PetaPixel’s vintage gear archives. Bringing it out into a Costa Rican torrential downpour is barely a warm-up for it.
Monochrome Jungles and HP5
Most people shoot lush, saturated color film in the tropics. I went the exact opposite direction. I loaded the Nikonos with a roll of Ilford HP5 Plus, a high-speed black-and-white emulsion that thrives in moody, low-contrast lighting. You can find technical data on pushing this specific stock in awful weather conditions over at
B&H Photo Video’s analog guides.
I spent two hours hiking through the wet jungle canopy, letting the rain batter the camera while I metered for the deep shadows of the wet palm fronds. The mechanical clunk of the Nikonos shutter is incredibly satisfying. I processed the film in the bathroom sink last night, and the negatives are spectacular—gritty, heavy, and completely devoid of the usual tourist-brochure gloss.
I’ve scanned the best frames and pushed the high-resolution files straight to the
California Views Gallery Hub. Go take a look at what happens when you strip the color away from a rainforest.
Comments
BigBoyDan: Scheffler got lucky, Pat. And the legislative loopholes for these parlays are a nightmare. I should have stayed in Nevada.
JudgeRoy: A Nikonos V and black-and-white film in a tropical storm. Finally, Patrick, you are demonstrating the resilience required of a true photographer. Superb contrast on the scans.
