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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 the "Before & After" for such an edit. Here are the steps I applied in the workflow:

 

  • Processed in DxO PureRAW 3

  • Edited exposure & colour (ACR)

  • Mask - everything except subject

  • Darkened & desaturated (mask)

  • Added contrast and vignette

  • Removed distracting dirt & debris

  • Applied colour grade

 

A reasonably accurate mask will be required to use different settings on the subject, and this can be tricky to make with hair / fur (especially with shallow depth of field). Software can help to automate this process, but nothing is perfect, thus it'll probably be the most fiddly part of the workflow. The dirt and debris clean-up can be quite time-consuming, but I find it a valuable way to keep focus on the subject, rather than getting distracted.

Retro Digital

These next two images were taken on the first DSLR that I owned (Fujifilm Finepix S2 Pro). The first is from when I bought the camera again recently (2024). I combined it with the oldest Nikon 85mm f/1.8 AF lens as an interesting budget option. Still, the combo is likely to set you back around $200, which is not great value these days. My other reason for going back to this camera was to experiment with CCD sensor colours again. Although these sensors are technically less colour-accurate than modern CMOS, I have found that they are better able to produce reds in squirrel fur when surrounded by ambiently lit green foliage. CMOS images, by comparison, have little to no separation in the red channel (regardless of white balance). This is a niche use case, and many still argue over whether a difference is even possible, but for me, the benefits have been surprisingly clear.

 

The second image was one of my first ever squirrel photos. Taken 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 surprisingly 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 wet grass for that shot.​​

New Tech​​​​

After picking up the Sony 24GM lens recently, I decided to try shooting some wide angle squirrel images once again. Twenty years of technology improvements (compared to the previous image) have revolutionized the photographic experience for subjects like this. Sure; the resolution, dynamic range, burst speed & sensor size have all been hugely improved, but they're not the most game-changing aspects. The lens is three stops faster, whilst being lighter and significantly sharper too. These are all nice things to have, but 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'd otherwise not be able to. Going back to old cameras is a great way to keep things in 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.

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.

The75mm f/.2 AF APS-C Sirui lens is only €380 brand new! That gets you a 113mm f/1.8 full frame equivalent, which is a really good sweet spot for this kind of photography, and its 69cm close focus also means you can get just the squirrel's face and hands in frame if you want to. Combining its decent AF speed with the Sony ZV-E10's animal eye-AF, silent shutter and decent burst speed makes it feel like a mini Sony A9 + Samyang AF 135mm f/1.8, while costing and weighing half as much. That's just insane! Although you lose in-body image stabilization, and an optical viewfinder (which I don't really need for this photography anyway), you do gain a fully articulated rear screen, meaning that low angle portrait shots are now possible too.

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