AUGUST 10, 2008
It's been a while since my last update but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy. I was able to get this pic - part of a nice sequence of half a dozen shots - of a swan showing impressive waterskiing form. Full marks to this bird for technique and length of ski run.

I just wish I could offer the same praise to the ducks. Maybe I'm imagining things, but the ducks just don't waterski like they used to. They're all now doing belly-landings, with feet being lifted the moment they touch the water. It's a worrying sign.

JULY 11, 2008
First responses to the levitating duck photo (see July 10, below) suggest I faked it. Some argued that I stuck those angelic wings on in Photoshop. Needless to say, I'm outraged.

So I'll show the full sequence of shots that included the levitating duck shot. This should settle any disputes once and for all.

The levitating duck

A very brief waterski ...

... before the duck sits down

Waterskiing duck? It was all over as soon as it started!

This sequence illustrates a disturbing trend I'm seeing a lot of lately with these guys: an appalling lack of waterskiing endurance. No sooner do their feet touch the water before they're settling down. Whatever happened to the spirit of the true standing-up waterskiing duck like the one I saw when this all started?

I'm not about to give up, but a bunch of photos of unimpressive avian waterskiing displays is filling up my hard drive and leaving me no closer to my holy grail. Now I've got my photographic technique sorted out the birds are refusing to do their part.

JULY 10, 2008
Sometimes the worst days are the best days. I was standing beside the pond in the worst light you could imagine. Well okay, I admit that night time would have been trickier, but for daytime it was the worst light you could imagine. The sky was grey. The water was grey. The grass, people and ducks were grey. Even if a duck did a 25-foot waterski right in front of me it would be no use because I'd never be able to get decent colour out of the shot. And then two things happened: the sun appeared in a gap in the clouds, and I managed to get a pic of something especially elusive - the levitating duck.

The elusive levitating duck

Even the other ducks are impressed by this guy. That duck on the left looks like he's studying some technique. Checking out the shot at 100% resolution (below) the levitating duck looks like he's in some kind of trance, although to be honest ducks' expressions seem to always look pretty much the same. But right now it suits my argument to say this looks like a trance:

100% resolution detail

In the few minutes that the sun was out I got a whole bunch of lucky shots. All of them nice and sharp. The sun coming from behind me is lighting up the ducks and the grey sky ahead of me is reflecting off the water, which kind of adds some nice contrast. Here's a sequence showing a White-eyed Duck coming in for a landing and then doing a short ski run.

JULY 6, 2008

I was back at the pond this week but the ducks were keeping their distance. Maybe they're aware of this blog. To make things worse the wind was gusting up to about 15 knots, meaning that the ducks were landing into a headwind. Which meant they didn't have to waterski to slow down. In the really strong gusts the ducks were wobbling a bit in the air and then doing a sort of vertical landing, Harrier Jump Jet style. Fun to watch but not the best for realising my ambition. However I got one nice shot on the day. This female White-eyed Duck is about to touch down and her posture simply screams concentration.

JUNE 30, 2008
Okay, now it's getting personal.

I was at the pond again today, pointing the lens at a bunch of cormorants. They're not ducks but they are still kind of cool. The sun was out, water calm, not much breeze. Perfect avian waterskiing conditions. And I'm concentrating on those cormorants and then out of the corner of my eye I see not one, but two Pacific Blacks approaching in the last stages of a high-speed landing. So I swing around and just manage to fire off a few shots taking in the end of the run. It was a good ski too - one of the best - at least 6 feet before it kneeled down, with nice technique and poise, but I was so late I only caught the aftermath. I tell you, this was the perfect shot - the holy grail shot I've been waiting for. The light was perfect. Focus was pin-sharp. Ski length brilliant. Distance to the duck was perfect for framing the bird and a good length of trail.

Here's the full frame of the shot

A 100% crop shows how sharp it is

It's like they're teasing me now. Waiting until I'm not looking, and then when I'm engrossed in some cormorants they shoot in from the side and rain down in pairs. I'm taking it pretty well. No, actually I'm not. Who am I kidding? I'm really peeved. I'm more determined than ever now. It's me versus them and I have a hunch it's going to get harder now because I think they're onto me. Yeah, the more I think about it, the more logical that sounds. I bet this was the duck that flew in front of my swan shot on June 23.

Like I said earlier, now it's personal.

JUNE 27, 2008
I love this shot of a duck looking like he's about to wipe out. Is that fear we can see in his eyes? Hard to say - ducks' eyes always seem to look the same.

His wings are all over the place, and if you look at his feet, they're clearly not set for a clean landing. Here's a closer view (below) and I'm sure most pilots would think this scenario would end in tears.

The next frame taken one sixth of a second later shows how he somehow managed to pull it off. Personally I would have written him off, perhaps awarded him a point for courage or maybe degree of difficulty. But these ducks should not be underestimated. They know what they are doing. And they are all around us...

JUNE 23, 2008
Sydney's getting some decent light at last. The light is weak but at least the sun's out and there was some serious duck action down at the pond. I had the camera set back up to 1000th second and got some of my best shots so far.

This shot (above) is possibly the best one I've got so far for showing how these guys pull their toes up to avoid tripping over and landing face-down on the water. Here's a closer view of those toes. The duck obviously know's what he's doing.

At full resolution almost all of the images are pin-sharp so I'm very happy with these pics.

The ducks were coming down like rain and then a swan came down. I got a nice sequence that included the shot shown below. This pic is my favourite so far and at full resolution it's nice and sharp too. I'll include a 50% and a 100% resolution crop to give you an idea about how these pics look nice and big.

full shot

50% resolution

100% resolution

And now, to show you the kind of thing that happens in nature photography, here's another shot from that sequence on the swan. This shot was just possibly the best one in the sequence, except some bird flew past the lens at that exact moment

JUNE 10, 2008
With winter set in, I'm really noticing how weak the light is, and that's affecting my fast exposures. So I've slowed my exposures down to 640th second. Unfortunately, slowing the ducks down is not an option so I'm getting a bit of motion blur, but that's the price you pay for some decent depth of field without also pushing up the noise levels.

I'm getting better at tracking fast-moving birds in the viewfinder now and this time I was able to give the camera a decent chance at focusing. But I'm still too slow at hitting the shutter button.

Only a couple of ducks this day, but I was pretty happy with this one. Nice and sharp at full resolution:

Now I'm not saying I've become obsessed by this task or anything like that. I consider it absolutely normal to wake up in the mornings wondering, 'Is this the day I get that waterskiing duck?'

MAY 26, 2008
I was having a run of bad shots and then found myself back at work again, talking about my pursuit of the holy-grail shot. My friends at work are very much used to this kind of talk from me. They're really nice about it and nod their heads politely, and you'd swear they were listening too. I'm thinking, forget about getting another camera - what I need is a place where ducks fly in regularly, in a neat line, one by one. Preferably all day. Like planes do at airports. That way I'd be sure to get at least one shot that worked out. One of my friends suggested I should get my girlfriend to stand outside of the frame and hurl the ducks in one at a time. That might get around some technical problems but I've sworn a pledge that no ducks will be hurt in my pursuit of my holy-grail photo.

But I got one okay shot this day (above). It's not perfect because it's a bit out of focus. But I like the heroic stance of that bird (White-eyed Duck)

MAY 19, 2008
I was talking about waterskiing ducks with some friends. Well okay, it's pretty much all I'm talking about these days and Soapy, a Canadian artist friend of mine, asks me if the ducks ever dig their toes in when they land. He figured that if they accidentally dug their toes into the water at high speed they'd end up flipping face down into the water.

So I'm thinking a lot about Soapy's question and then by a stroke of luck I find the beginnings of an answer in this shot of a duck lining itself up for a water landing:

So that's your answer right there, Soapy. This duck is approaching at high speed. You can tell it's going fast because its wing feathers are all bent back by the air pressure as it decelerates. And look what it's doing to those toes. I'll show them at higher resolution to make it easier for you:

The duck's toes and claws are clearly curled right up, like the front of a water ski. That's why they don't trip over on the water

No doubting what's going on there. That duck knows what it's doing. Now have another look at it, I mean the whole bird. I can't say this for sure, but I reckon that bird is deep in concentration. I mean, what if one foot hits the water before the other. That would flip it around sideways and you'd have a duck doing donuts instead of a ski run. So it has to get it just right. And I thought I was the one who had a lot to remember.

I took a bunch more pics. The lighting wasn't good - everything was harsh and back-lit - but the ducks were coming in at an impressive rate and I was getting in some practice.

It turns out that my favourite ducks are the Pacific Blacks. They seem to be the ones that come in fastest and therefore ski the longest. Unlike this guy in the series show below:

		At 6 frames a second this sequence of four shots took only two thirds of a second. By the way, this pic is another one that shows the toes curled up, ready to prevent it being flipped over. At this point the bird is concentrating on a level landing
		The bird is fully level now
		This is pretty much the part of the sequence I'm aiming for. Shame it's so blurred
		... and a sixth of a second later the party's over. This landing was a pretty unimpressive waterski, but it shows how precise you have to be with your timing

So now I know where this is heading. At this point, a serious photographer would get some serious camera gear, with a good fast lens and much faster burst rate.

But that's taking all the fun out of it.

NEXT

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