Sometimes I travel many miles in search of wildlife. And sometimes I remember there are critters to photograph not far from home. Like this Nutria swimming at Delta Ponds in Eugene.
Nutria, or coypu, are originally from South America. They are a beaver-like semi-aquatic rodent, sometimes mistaken for muskrats; some people liken them to a giant rat. They were introduced to the US because someone had the misguided idea that they could be bred for their fur. When the fur market crashed, they were released into the wild. Nutria have become fairly common in ponds and along stream beds in the Pacific Northwest, the Atlantic Coast, and the Gulf of Mexico coast. They are now considered an invasive pest because they damage vegetation and destroy wetland habitats. They can be fun to watch and photograph, but I was chagrined to see a dozen of them munching shoreside plants in a short walk around Eugene’s Delta Ponds.
This photo also illustrates the significant advancements in modern photographic equipment and processing software over the past few years. I used my Nikon Z8 and a Nikon Z 180-600mm lens with a 1.4x teleconverter, with the AF mode set for animal detection and continuous autofocus. The camera settings were 1/2000′ shutter speed, wide open aperture, and auto ISO. The camera nailed the focus on the critter’s eye, and the matrix metering at ISO 12,800 gave me a great histogram with no clipping. ISO 12,800! Imagine that 10 years ago. The Denoise tool in the latest version of Lightroom Classic did a fantastic job of eliminating virtually all noise in the image, without affecting the overall image sharpness.
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