Introduction

Hey there, welcome to my site. Just thought I would kick this off with a little introduction. My name is Dalin Laqua and I have been photographing Southern Alberta for over 20 years. In my early years the focus was mainly capturing life moments. As I became more serious I started perusing landscape photography. Oddly enough, wildlife was not on my radar. I frequently saw the pictures of birds posted on various online forums and never felt any draw to it. That all changed in 2021 when I decided to try it. The first thing I realized was that I did not have appropriate lenses. After acquiring a 300mm f4 I gave it a try. Wow. I was unprepared for how difficult it is to get good wildlife photos, but worse, I was unprepared for how much I would fall in love with the experience of being out there chasing the shot.

For the next few years I spent countless hours researching, reading, editing, looking at images, watching youtube, and heading out my door to try again and again. Everything clicked when I discovered Duade Paton's youtube channel as he was able to demonstrate the techniques I was trying to learn. I also feel in love with the style of his images, and while mine are not equivalent I draw a lot of inspiration from his work. Editing is a major part of producing high quality wildlife images and while I am still learning, I have finally arrived at a consistent style and look and my editing process became much more efficient.

Fortunately a few decades of camera experience still applies to persuing a new genre and I was able to master long lens handling and adapt quickly to the fast action of wildlife photography.

Birds

Here are some of my first attempts at photographing birds. The success of the owl shots led me to add a 1.4x TC. That summer I had several opportunities to see birds and I started actively visiting local spots, though for the most part I was wandering around and photographing whatever I came upon by chance. It wouldn't take long to discover the limitations of that method, though I had a lot of fun, and I was hooked.

Bears

I am also fortunate to live very close to the Canadian Rockies where we have a lot of bears. Even better they are often visible from the roads through our National and Provincial Parks.

Cameras

For most of my photography journey I have shot Pentax cameras. Most of my childhood was captured by my Dad's Pentax ME Super or my Grandpa's Pentax A3000, both of which are now mine. When it came time for DSLR's it was an easy transition to keep shooting Pentax. Through most of the DSLR era Pentax made some of the most robust and durable cameras for outdoor adventures and I had great experiences with that gear. As I ventured into wildlife photography I came up on some limitations that lead to a switch. Modern mirrorless cameras and their fantastic eye tracking abilities is highly desirable for the lightning fast movements of little birds. I have made many beautiful images with arguably the least capable autofocus in the industry on my Pentax cameras but I am fortunate now to shoot with a Nikon Z8 and several of the amazing Z lenses. I'll discuss gear more in future posts, but I have hands on experience with very basic and very high end equipment, and I can say that equipment isn't a limiting factor to persuing wildlife photography, though it is very nice to shoot with top tier cameras. The following are some of my favourite shots from my Pentax K3III with 300mm F4+TC.

My first year of wildlife photography was very exciting and I discovered many species of birds I had just never noticed before. The variety of species of birds is a major draw to this genre and I discovered communities of passionate people in both photography and birding. Photography has been a personal passion for a long time but this was something different. Regularly seeking out the serene experience of observing my natural surroundings was life changing. Combining such a rewarding activity with photography has greatly improved my personal happiness and my photographic eye.

2025

Fast forward a few years and I have learned a lot and pushed myself to create images I am very proud of. I hope to share more here about the wildlife in Alberta.

I hope you'll come back again as I build out the content on my site. Thanks for visiting!