Rabbit with grass

[John Robinson]

Seen this a few times but never with a camera handy. Quite a rare shot and I am not sure if its for bedding or food for a young one in a sealed burrow. Maybe bedding would be drier stuff.
IQ not brilliant but best I could do under the conditions and with the gear I had.
D100
Sigma 50-500. HH on knee
ISO800
250th @f9
Neat image Slight crop off right for comp
Image guru
PSP levels
Background blurred.
JohnR

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Johnny, So cute. Love the way he stuffed his mount with so much grass Must be for feeding the little ones somewhere. The image looks a bit soft to me and I think you know that already. Not sure if you used Clarity or how much sharpening. The slow SS could be an issue here, but I understand you don't want to shoot at ISO >800. Is there a reason you couldn't tradeoff aperture for higher SS? I also think blurring the BG is a little too obvious. I'd suggest applying NR, but not blur to the BG. TFS. Loi

[John Robinson]

Thanks Loi
I did use neat image but it didn,t seem to make much difference to the backdrop. I think you are right, the blurring is too obvious. Regards the ISO -this is a Nikon D100 - not the best handler of noise in the business and that 50-500 without a tripod, Well! - nuff said ! The shot was such a once in a lifetime grab that I had no idea what I was shooting before this . You are absolutely correct- I could have dropped the aperture to sort the backdrop out but there you are - hindsight eh !!! Carrying the Sigma 50-500 plus camera -plus tripod is a bit beyond me these days- and a tripod would certainly have helped !!
Thanks very much for your interest Loi
Cheers
John

[Morkel Erasmus]

Interesting behaviour Johnny. I think - in hindsight - that f9 was overkill and you could have traded down to f7.1 or even f5.6 (unless the lens was soft at that aperture) for more SS/better ISO? The blurring of the background is also not that well executed as I picked up on it before I even read your text - but then again that's a big bugbear for me...I prefer having backgrounds as shot. Again - here a shallower DOF would have helped.

[John Robinson]

Thanks for your comments Morkel. I agree -it's terrible !! In fact it gets wors every time I look at it. I remember I walked around the corner of a hedge and the thing was sitting on the far side of the area of grass, right in front of a nettle patch. Imanaged one shot and that was it. I always have the camera on aperture priority, but why it was on f 9 is interesting. I had been playing around doing flowers with the 500mm from a distance. That'll teach me ! If only I could find another bunny doing the same !! Thanks for your help.
John