Cotton Rat - Sigmodon arizonae

[Ian Cassell]

There are always lots of big-game critters on here -- figured I'd go for small scale
I came across this little guy as I was out this morning looking for birds.

Canon 7D
Canon 500/4
Canon 600EX - RT

1/400 sec f/8 ISO 400

Crop for comp, levels, sharpening in CS6

138718

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Nice and sharp, Ian! I love the light in his eyes! He's looking so neat - did you comb his hair first? :w3

Is it on a beach? Looks like he's sitting on shells.

[Ian Cassell]

Thanks, Tobie. No, he's on a gravel trail at the park. Lots of plant debris on the ground too.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Your subject is so cute, Ian!

I am afraid your shutter speed was a little too slow for this fast little fellow…You are using a 500mm lens, from my experience one needs at least 500/s to get a sharp image with such lens… I would have gone for ISO 800 in this instance, or maybe F6.3, depending on how far I was from this little fellow. Tell me more about this Cotton Rat please, what does he eat and what his habits are? Lovely encounter, thank you for sharing!

Kind regards,

[Ian Cassell]

Thanks, Gabriela. I ususally don't use the 1/focal-length formula when I am tripod mounted unless, of course, my subject is moving around. This guy was pretty still. Maybe it's my aged eyes, but I'm not really seeing any motion blur - what is bothering you here?

As for Mr. Rat, these guys tend to live in overgrown areas near water and eat the typical rodent fare (I don't know for sure, but assume they are a pest in the cotton crop. Cotton is an important crop here in Arizona). Here's an interesting link:

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Sigmodon_arizonae/

I bet they would be good yummy food for the Northern Harriers which frequent the area where I shot this.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Ian - Nice to see another different animal. With the combination of the tripod and flash it looks sharp to me, in fact it looks oversharp and a bit crunchy. The light unfortunately looks unnatural with the reflection in the eye even though it appears the near side is in heavy shadow. Although I like the inclusion of the tail, I feel the comp is a little awkward and needs more room to the right and below for the rat to move into.

TFS,
Rachel

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Ian, and thank you for your reply and info about this cutie:w3 it seemed to me that the little one wasn't sharp enough from the beginning, and I thought you might have tried to sharpen him too much? I have similar images of my Kalahari mice taken in the shade, they (the images, not the mice:t3) become kind of crunchy during processing. I might be wrong Ian, perhaps you cropped too much and there's a loss of IQ. Sorry, maybe it's my eyes-I am often told I am either oversharpening or undersharpening...

I want to see more images of these guys please, crunchy or not:bg3: Enjoy your day Ian!

Kind regards,

[Morkel Erasmus]

Cute one - though I agree with Rachel here, looks a bit too crunchy and also the whole image looks too "flashed", with no real shadow contrast and the clear flash catchlight in the eyes which looks unnatural...not sure this can be "salvaged", sorry Ian :t3

[Ian Cassell]

Thanks, folks. I always wrestle with the flash. I do like a little fill sometimes, but I see how I overdid it. I have to go back and see if I have any that aren't so 'crunchy' (perhaps one where the flash didn't fire). Gabriela, there was very little crop here. I took a bit of junk off the top and bottom and made it a bit pano, but I wanted to keep the whole tail, which made it a bit difficult.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Glad the tail is in:w3, and I am sure you'll have another chance to capture this cutie:bg3:

Kind regards,