Squirrel Steals The Show

I thought this was hilarious, and should share it:

link

excellent

Thanks Bob,

Brilliant, brought a to my face.

Howard

Is it real or is it photoshopped?

The original is at National Geographic. This is an 800kB PNG file rather than the 20KB JPGs in the newspaper sites

There are arguments both ways:

The squirrel is in focus so an autofocus would have focus on the squirrel during the timer delay.

The couple are laughing whereas I would have though surprised or shocked.

The squirrel looks rather large but looking at it in detail things such as the whiskers appear "correct" although the top of the head looks "odd"

There is no EXIF data on any of the images - which would give focussing distance.

To be fair to the couple, my reaction would have been to laugh as well.

I think we are placing too much of an emphasis on what 'we' would have done in that situation, which is a bit of a flawed approach - better to look at the technicalities of the pic rather than question their reaction as supporting the belief it might be faked or genuine.

I consider myself to be pretty good at spotting a fake, and I have to say I'm of the thinking it's genuine.

I also dont think the top of the head looks odd at all.

Thanks for the National Geographic link. I think the picture HAS to be real! It's just too good to be fake. From the National Geographic page I found a link to another site called 'Cute Overload' - which has loads of pictures like this shot of a guinea pig in a yellow crocheted hat. Too wonderful: link

I saw this in the Daily Mail yesterday. Presumably the picture has been cropped to improve the composition because the autofocus would have locked onto the centre of the image. The squirrel is to one side but is really sharp. I got the impression reading the paper that the squirrel played around in front of the camera for a while so maybe this is one of several shots taken if they were using a remote control shutter release.
Thanks for sharing this here Snootchies.
david

I am still not 100% convinced.

The park website shows a Columbian Ground Squirrel, one of the 29 mammals in the park and are they similar?

I laughed real or fake, I think it's great.