The Australian players then were considered
the most professional. They went to great lengths to win a match. If good play doesn’t
work, they sledge, if it still doesn’t work – they cheat and get it done.
Life gets so tiring and monotonous at times, you need something to keep yourself alive. After months of procrastinating, I finally bought a DSLR. I spent a fortune on a Canon 1000D (18-55mm kit lens + 75-300mm telephoto + 8GB card + tripod and case). I actually wanted to buy one when I visit India because UAE is definitely not the place if you have an interest in nature photography, but then I couldn’t resist the offer on this camera.
Handling an SLR camera is quite tough unless you know what you are doing. So I’ve been having a pretty tough time and to make things worse, the lens on my camera doesn’t have image stabilisation feature; so handheld low light and zoom shots turned out to be a nightmare. Carrying around a bulky camera is another problem. It’s interesting though, if you have enough time to plan your shot and experiment with the settings.
Check out these pictures taken for Al Ain Zoo on my first day out with the camera. Couple of them are pretty good but not good enough to be added to 'The Very Best of Phil McLight'. Boy, I just realise how much I miss my Canon 570IS, the original Phil McLight.
The antelopes, deers and gazelles were all tagged, giving you a feeling that you were visiting Noah's Arc than a zoo.
The meerkats were definetely the most interesting creatures in the entire zoo. Even though locked up in a very safe environment, they still exibit their instincts. While the whole 'gang' fed on peanuts, a lone sentry scanned the surroundings for predators.
This absolutely magnificient creature, which appears to have missed the train the dinosors took, is a green iguana. I was able to get a nice photo in low light as this creature stood dead still.
It was hard not to get intimidated by the looks of this vulture. Its eyes were as big as those of humans.
Maybe, the best shot of the day. I was able to capture this eagle with lens extended to 300mm at 1/30 sec, 5.6f and 100 ISO.
I'd love to visit the zoo again, better prepared this time. However, I believe I would be a lot happier with a lousy shot of an animal in the wild than a hundred great pics of them in captivity.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
* in case you didn't know, Valentines Day has got nothing to do with Valentino Rossi's birthday, even though its only days apart *
