Squirrel
Photography
Processing
With winter being quite void of colour, I decided to do some heavier processing to make the squirrels stand out against the background. The two examples below show "Before & After" an edit. The first image being an unprocessed RAW image (iso 1600) and the second one being first run through DxO PureRAW 3 to reduce the noise. I then did the following edits:
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Cloned out distracting details
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Darkened the log
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Darkened background
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Desaturated background
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Added contrast and vignette
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Applied colour grade
Using different amounts of saturation and contrast on the subject will require a reasonably accurate mask, which can be tricky with hair and fur. Some software can help to automate this process, but nothing is perfect and this is probably the most fiddly part of the workflow. This amount of rework is not something I usually do, as I prefer to keep things as faithful as possible. Whether this works for you will come down to personal preference, and I'm not totally convinced myself, but it is a fun example of what is possible.
Retro Digital
These next two images were taken on the first DSLR I ever owned (Fuji S2 Pro). The first is from when I bought the camera again recently. I combined it with a Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 AF lens to experiment with CCD sensor colours again. Modern cameras seemed to be washing out colours of red squirrels against foliage with ambient lighting.
The second image was one of my first ever squirrel photos, mere days after I bought the camera originally (in 2002). The Sigma zoom lens I used for that generally had very poor image quality, but it was strangely decent for close-ups on its widest angle/aperture. Its 17mm f/2.8 setting is equivalent to a 25.5mm f/4.2 image on full frame. With no live view and certainly no flip-up screen, focusing and framing had to be done by looking through the optical viewfinder, thus I had to get down in the mud to get that shot.
New Tech
After picking up the Sony 24GM lens, I decided to try shooting some wide angle squirrel images once again. Twenty years of technology improvements have revolutionized the photographic experience for subjects like this. Sure, the resolution and burst speed is eight & fifteen times higher respectively. The sensor is double the size and dynamic range & noise performance have been hugely improved. The lens is three stops faster, while being significantly sharper, and those are all nice things to have, but they're not the most game-changing aspects. It's features like blazingly fast animal eye tracking, working across the entire frame, while using live-view on a flip up rear screen that enable me to get images I wouldn't otherwise be able to. All this from a combo that weighs less and doesn't force me to get down in the mud is just amazing, and going back to old cameras is a great way to keep this perspective.
When filling the frame with these small subjects the plane of focus is incredibly shallow, but I like the aesthetic and the image quality for that plane is simply phenomenal. With the lens being so close to the animal's face, it helps to be able to shoot silently, which the Sony A1 can do without motion issues (useful for squirrels). Both of these images are uncropped shots from the same lens, and the second image shows processing similar to the first example (top of this page).
Infrared
Since I have an infrared camera, it seemed rude not to at least try photographing them in that wavelength. There is unfortunately not a huge difference to squirrels in infrared light, but one thing is their eyes. It's usually difficult to see the pupil in squirrel's eyes because they look all black in most lighting. When they do show up in infrared, they are considerably more clear.
Thermal
When I got my hands on a basic thermal camera for my phone, I tried it out on squirrels and immediately found something interesting. This squirrel had a damaged paw and the video shows that with high levels of heat.
Vintage Cameras
My main camera is the Sony A1, and you would assume that everything about it is cutting edge, especially the colours. However, since collecting and using some older digital cameras, I noticed that ones with CCD sensors were producing way more punchy colours with squirrels against foliage. The complimentary red against green is a great look, but it was often getting washed out to a brown mess, and it wasn't something that you could just push the saturation slider to fix. With CCD cameras, I was getting a much more punchy result, and it was seemingly not related to the processing, lens or even camera. To see more samples and thoughts about images from this old DSLR sensor technology, see my dedicated page here.
Apex
Despite the above CCD topic, the Sony A1 combined with the Sony 135GM lens is a formidable combination for photographing almost anything. It doesn't do anything magical like a smartphone. If you screw up you'll get bad photos. But if you know what you want, and you need performance to get there, it simply delivers. Sure, it's about ten times the cost of the previous combination (or 100 times just the camera), but it really can be that much better.
Lightweight & Budget
As cheap and geeky as it can be to use older DSLRs for up close squirrel photography, it's certainly not an easy or pleasant experience. My mission here was to find a cheap and light system that was also powerful and highly capable. Up until very recently, this combination of features would have been hard to find. For less than €800 and 800g, the camera and lens combination that took the below photo feels a bit like a miracle.