Tree Hugger

Hey Jerry,

Love squirrels - one of my favourite subjects! Great image title and have to say this is just a GREAT pose. Compositionally and creatively this one works really well for me - everything from how much tree is included, the "curls/curves" of the squirrel, the tail position, where the head and eye is positioned, etc - all great. I'm not normally a fan of white backgrounds, but this one fits well (and makes the scene look wintery, as do the crystals on the head). And the light - soft and sweet! Really well done.

On the technical side - exposure and colour look spot on to me. My only very small nit is that on my monitors (checked it on 3 of 'em) the facial region looks just a TAD soft. Hard to say if that could be remedied by some careful selective sharpening (without seeing original file or knowing how it was sharpened to this point), but hoping it can be sharpened sufficiently...

Cheers...and thanks for posting this - super nice one to spend time looking at!

Brad

Jerry,
The pose is perfect, but I agree with Brad regarding the sharpness of the face

A good alert pose you caught this squirrel in. Looks like it is about to either jump down or climb back up, ready for action.
Agree about the twitchy nose being a bit soft. Thanks for sharing.

Jerry,

Did you hand-hold this or was the camera/lens supported on a tripod? If hand-held I'm thinking that might be the source of the softness (that's a lot of focal length to hand-hold at 1/400s, even with IS). Just curious...

Cheers...

Brad

Brad,

First of all, thanks for all your kind comments on this image. You made my day. This particular shot was made out of my vehicle window with the lens in a somewhat awkward position partially resting against the window frame. I spotted this guy, along with some of his friends, on my way to try to find some eagles.

As you know from our previous discussions on lens, I was using the new Canon 200-400 lens. I took literally hundreds of images with this lens during my trip to Wisconsin. One thing I learned, as you suggested in your comments, is that 1/400 s is slow for this focal length. I have a lot of images that are not as sharp as they should have been. Most of those were at 400-560 mm with shutter speeds of 1/500s or less. I started to get better results when I would increase my shutter speed. I tried to keep my ISO no greater than 640, as I was shooting with a 7D, which does not perform well at high ISO's. I also shot this image at f5.6. I probably should have stopped down a bit for better depth of field, but my shutter speed would have dropped lower.

In the end, I came away with mixed feelings about this lens. I loved the zoom capability, but it's a lens that takes some getting used to as Ken Watkins said in one of his posts.

Great shot and really cute pose! I think a squirrel doesn't sit still very long in the winter because there are so many animals trying to catch it. Maybe he was moving a little bit, but I don't notice much softness in the face. I don't see many squirrel photos with this pose and composition. Congratulations!

Hey Jerry,

Thanks for the clarification. I borrowed the 200-400 (and a 1Dx) and shot with it for a few hours (by no means an extensive test and logistics prevented any head-to-head comparisons). Found that overall it handled and produced results that seemed to be very comparable to the "black" 200-400 (the Nikon one) - so quite impressive overall. My only mild disappointment was that the integrated TC seemed to perform like any other 1.4x TC, and I thought because it was dedicated to one lens it may have been "matched" a little better.

Agree with the idea that this lens - like all the "big glass" - takes a bit of time and work before one can fully get comfortable with what they can do.

Cheers...

Brad

The sinuous shape of his body make for a great presentation. Composition looks very good, to my eye.