One wet Magpie

One wet Magpie (above) and one wet Duck (below). How different they look :D

Mallard, Tasmania

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Duckography

Mallards, Tasmania

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Duckography

Pacific Black Ducks (top and middle) and a Mallard landing

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Frozen millisecond

Mallard, Tasmania

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Random images

above: Masked Lapwing, Tasmania

above: Brush Wattlebird, Tasmania

above: Mallard with ducklings, Tasmania

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Come closer, have a better look

This is one of those photos that lose much when scaled down to screen res. Still the 1024 pixel version is not that bad.

Mallard bathing, Tasmania

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edit: at the time of posting I was unaware how right I was, talking of losing quality. [updated 28/08/2008]

Happy Duck Day!

Mallard, Tasmania

Pacific Black Duck in flight, Tasmania

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Duckography

I thought I shouldn't leave the Goose without a company...

Mallard mum and babies, Tasmania

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Do you remember this image?

A tighter crop of a pic posted here long time ago

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Duck time

These photos were taken months ago and all those cute babies are now big beautiful ducks.

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Water drops

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Kiwi

The ducklings are growing fast and now they look like the flightless Kiwi. So cute. More to come.

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Learning is important

Mallard duck and ducklings, Hobart, Tasmania

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Ducklings

My local ducks have babies! Three types of ducklings and parents live together – Mallards, Pacific Blacks and Hardheads. Obviously they 'speak' the same language as the 'teachers' easily control the 50 or more 'students' with just voice commands. There are specialized guards as well. I wish I had more spare time to observe how the group is organized and functioning.

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Duckography

above: Pacific Black Ducks in Paradise

above: Two Mallards and (middle) a Pacific Black / Mallard cross-breed

above: female Mallard

above: Chestnut Teal (female)

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Duckography

There should be a separate genre of photography, devoted entirely to ducks. They are probably the most photogenic creatures in the Universe. A duck in a photo can only look gorgeous!

top: Mallard, above: Pacific Black, Tasmania

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How Nikon's advertising campaign made me buy a Canon

It's funny how we often do exactly the opposite of what we thought we would do, exactly the opposite of what we had carefully planned for a long time.

For about a year and a half I was dreaming to buy a Nikon DSLR. I like their design better, I like their logo better, I like how Nikon sounds and how cool it is to just have a Nikon. I had chosen my model - D80. Yes, D200 is The Camera, but it is way too expensive. I just couldn't afford to even think about it. And I was reading reviews and was frequently stopping to look at the Nikons behind the camera shop windows.

The day was getting closer and I was a bit hesitant to take the decision and go and grab one. Then they dropped a brochure in my mailbox. D80 on special! Get one for the price of two :) Offer ends at the end of September. I had to do it! It triggered my determination.

I started to check the prices at different camera stores and noticed that they were selling Canon 30D at the same price. So I decided to get to know more about it, just to convince myself that my Nikon will be much much better. Yes, but no. Everywhere they were comparing the D80 with 400D, and 30D with D200. D200 was the clear winner, but I realized that Canon 30D is a higher class camera than my dream D80. Faster, more solidly built and with better image quality. That's how the crisis of hesitation started. I suffered for about a week!

What made me take the final decision was the bigger variety of middle priced affordable lenses for Canon. After a lot of reading I said 'good bye' to Nikon and bought a camera from their worst competitors.

It's awesome! I've just started to learn how to use it. The image quality is stunning, and the performance just blew my mind. Absolutely incomparable with my old Fuji ultra zoom.

So that's how Nikon's promotion made me decide to buy a higher class Canon. Sometimes it's probably better to listen to your brain and not your heart. Well... at least in this case it was.

Above are two Mallards who live across the street from my place. I took these on the very first day. The superb image quality and per-pixel-detail of the CMOS sensor are clearly visible.

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