A Real Wild Red One!

I say a real Wild red squirrel because, although I've blipped others they have always been ones living in nearby woods coaxed into the garden by hazelnuts or bird food. This one was actually out in the forest searching for its own food.

I was taking a walk to blip something quite different when I saw the squirrel ahead of me on the path. In the low light I had put my 250mm lens on and set my ISO at 1000. I was advised by a good blipper of birds that 7.1 was the sweet-point for aperture on zoom lenses so I thought I'd give it a try today. I hoped to be set up for any eventuality, you never know how quickly fungi might move!

I was so excited to catch the squirrel that I've tried my best to rescue it in PS.
I tweaked the levels and just ever so slightly the saturation. Than I set the High Pass filter on 10 and erased the parts I didn't want sharpened. The low light meant I still hadn't got quite what I wanted so I used the Lighting Effect filter and, again erased any bits from that layer that I didn't like. It was cropped this from the centre 9th of the original.

I feel I was lucky hand-holding at 1/25th, at this zoom it should have been about 1/250th. Hope I get another chance! Any thoughts would be welcome.

EDIT 5.30pm 26/09/11: Reading the comment from gblrps about a halo produced by sharpening, I went back to my saved TIFF file and took a soft rubber even closer to the edge of the squirrel (the brightness between the squirrel and the twig is natural). It has definitely improved the image.

The good thing about blip is that if you ask for advice, there is usually someone there to give it, especially with the new Critique Group. Thanks!