Cougar/deer photo - Has anyone seen this one and if so do you have any details?

[Stand_watie]

[Art Eatman]

It was posted in the Hunt forum at either TFL or THR, if not both.  I remember it, but not the details.

Art

[gunsmith]

cabela's sells game cameras you can set up in the woods to see what
game is passing by so you can set up a blind if there is any good game.
in this case it looks like it caught a cougar attack about to happen.
interesting photo.

[Harold Tuttle]

Obviously it is shift change at the game park.

 

this one in NJ is fun to watch:
http://www.rd-hc.com/rdhc_deer_cam.htm

[Bogie]

Rocky's on right now...

...and he's lookin' REAL pudgy... Guess it's a good feeder.
 

[Stand_watie]

It was posted in the Hunt forum at either TFL or THR, if not both.  I remember it, but not the details.

Art

Thanks all. I got it as an email forward and was trying to determine if

a) I had a genuine cool photo taken by a 'friend of a friend of a friend' (you know the story or just another (still pretty cool) internet forward.

b) If it was essentially a genuine photo rather than photoshopped.

 Anybody know the answer to "b"?

If it's essentially a genuine photo, it's pretty cool regardless of where it came from. The whole notion of ANYTHING  MADE OF FLESH AND BLOOD creeping up on a deer like that is to my limited knowledge quite astounding.

[Cosmoline]

Why wouldn't it be real?  Cougars aren't out there eating soyburgers. 

[Twycross]

The whole notion of ANYTHING  MADE OF FLESH AND BLOOD creeping up on a deer like that is to my limited knowledge quite astounding.

Yeah, the big kitty-cats can be pretty quiet when they want to be. It can get pretty freaky.

[280plus]

Deer, it's what's for dinner...

[Jamisjockey]

Why wouldn't it be real?  Cougars aren't out there eating soyburgers. 

The implication is that its photoshopped.  It doesn't look obviously shopped to me, but I'm no expert either.

[gyp_c2]

Colors aren't right, but they seem equally washed...I'd vote 4 avenison meal with a Hornitos back...

[RocketMan]

You can see brush and other items common to the main picture blocking both the deer and the cougar.  Would that be hard to do in Photoshop?  I'm not an expert, either.

[doczinn]

Maybe it was simply two pictures taken with the same camera on the same night, chopped together? That would be easy to do, as long as there was no wind to move the brush.

[doczinn]

Looking a bit closer, the cougar looks a little transparent....

And why would the camera not have tripped when the deer was right in front?

[Cosmoline]

I suppose it could be pasted together, but it's not exactly an alien abduction photo.  Cougar are night hunters, and are out there chasing deer and other food.  It's not unusual at all.  It happens every single night, anywhere there are cougar.  I guess folks think that predators roar and act dramatic when they're on the attack.  In reality they do it matter-of-factly, just like the photo shows.  For them it's just like going to work in the morning. 

[Twycross]

And why would the camera not have tripped when the deer was right in front?

It may have. Some cameras can be set to take a picture, say, every five seconds while detecting motion. This could be part of a series of shots, and this was the best of the lot.

[mustanger98]

I suppose it could be pasted together, but it's not exactly an alien abduction photo.  Cougar are night hunters, and are out there chasing deer and other food.  It's not unusual at all.  It happens every single night, anywhere there are cougar.  I guess folks think that predators roar and act dramatic when they're on the attack.  In reality they do it matter-of-factly, just like the photo shows.  For them it's just like going to work in the morning. 

I'm agreeing on both points.

I'm thinking, like twycross posted, that this photo is part of a series of trail cam photos. I agree about the rationale... that it's not like it was an "alien abduction photo".

It gets me sometimes how unrealistic folks are about predators. If a cat roared and "acted dramatic" it'd spook the deer and the cat'd be out the effort for that attempt. Folks don't seem to get it that those cats are professional killers... yeah, "just like going to work in the morning".

This also brings to mind what Elmer Keith wrote in "Hell, I Was There". Most folks say cougars prey on old, sick, or injured deer. He said he saw cougars bypass the old, sick, and injured in favor of a perfectly healthy deer. And they don't clean up their cold kills either. They kill a healthy deer, eat what they can, wait and kill the next meal fresh.

[charby]

two years ago that got passed around in a email as Cougars in Southern Iowa. Well Iowa doesn't have stands of Jeffery pines and Mule deer are also non existant.

Something tells me it is 'shopped or creative shot with taxidermy mounts.

-C

[Glenn Bartley]

I am thinking all of you seem to believe, if this is a real unretouched pic, that the deer and puma are walking as oppposed to running. The flash would effectively freezer any motion, so no blur as if in motion. They could well both be full out running and just at the moment where you do not see the legs extended very far on either. Very interesting if real and not retouched.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I'd say it's real. 

Night time flash photography has a certain "look" to it, which this picture shares.  Faking this look in photoshop wouldn't be overly difficult from a technical standpoint.  But from a practical standpoint, it's unlikely that your typical half-arsed PSer would know what look to duplicate.  You have to know and understand that look very well if you want to fake it, and I don't think very many people would know what that look is.

A multiple exposure would be a far easier way to fake this shot.  A deer walks by and the shutter trips and a photo is taken, then sometime later a cougar walks by and the shutter is tripped again, without advancing the film in between.  But I doubt this is the case here.  If it were, then the deer and the cougar should both be underexposed by 1/2 relative to the rest of the scene.  They don't appear underexposed to me.  Also, the deer and cougar would each appear translucent in a double exposure, which isn't the case here.

The tip of the cougar's tail is darker than the rest of him.  Is this normal coloration for a cougar?  If not, it could indicate that the tail is moving rapidly while the shutter is open and the flash is being fired.    Typical flash bursts last about 1 milisecond.  That tail must have some serious zip to it.

Anyways, just some random thoughts.  Take 'em for what they're worth...

[280plus]

Actually, they're probably pals, knew all about the camera and set the shot up just for some ha has... 

[Twycross]

The darker tail is normal for a cougar.