24 Comments on “In Case You Were Wondering How Close You Can Get to a Sleeping Kitten With a Full-Sized DSL Camera Before She Wakes Up”

1. Wow.

   Thank you, John. I think my blood pressure just dropped ten points, looking at that sweet utter relaxation.

2. She’s faking it, thinking:- “If I stay perfectly still with my eyes closed he might just go away.”

3. *boops the nose*

4. Clearly whatever the humans are doing isn’t worth interrupting a very good nap for. If there was a can of tuna, that would be a different matter.

5. ’cause when you spend your time scampering at full speed every waking moment, when you stop, you really, really stop. I’ve had kittens that I could pick up a leg and drop while they sleep and they just go right on sleeping. Gets to be a fun game of “how much can I move the kitten before it wakes up?”

6. Two words: Zoom. Lens. *G*
   Very helpful when stalking larger kitties with claws that can rend water buffaloes.

7. Great picture … thanks for sharing it! Kittens sleep the sleep of the just.

   When we adopted DammitMalcolm a few years ago, he was maybe 3 months old. He would scamper full tilt for as long as he could, and then essentially flop over, wherever he was, into the deepest of sleep. You could pick him up, carry him around, anything … he’d keep sleeping.

   He still does the flop-thing! Though not with the depth of sleep. The flop is rather more dramatic now, since he’s approximately the size of Cleveland.

8. .
   Next one from Inside the Feline Brain, with the NanoCam from GoGoGoPro!

9. I had a pair of kittens some decades ago that go full-bore until they stopped and literally just fell over on their sides, sound asleep. You could watch them fight it, but they’d eventually give in. They had a tendency to do this on a chair and would often just fall off the chair when it happened (giving a new meaning to “falling asleep”).

10. Well, you never know when or to what your spouse may be paying attention. I suggested to my wife that all these beautiful Scamperbeasts shots were *probably* taken with a Nikon D750 or D810 and that it would be nice if I could upgrade from my D7100. Her reply: “Oh, did you just sign a multi-year $3.5M book deal too?” Curse you, Scalzi!

11. RJ:

    In fact they were taken with a Nikon D5100 with the kit lens, so your camera is actually nicer than mine. But I applaud the effort (and also, I’m kind of lusting after the D5, which to be clear is faaaaaar out of my league).

12. @Jay Brandt

    stuffonmycat.com

    That is all…

13. So, no-one else thinking this should be titled ‘A Dream of a Thousand Cats’?

14. Might I suggest a macro lens? At least that will allow you to get closer (assuming the Scamperbeast stays still)

15. Beautiful Kitty! Great photograph! :)

16. aw what a good kitten! :D

17. This proves once again that kittens operate primarily in one of two bi-stable cat default states:
    “-atonic,” as in the above picture (up to 22 hours/day), and “-aclysmic,” much of the rest of the time. The latter occasionally devolves, depending on launching height and proximity to nearby frangible objects, into “-apult” followed by “-astrophic.”

18. Never let it be said that Whatever ignores the really important scientific challenges; I congratulate you for once again expanding the scope of human knowledge with this experiment.

    The kitten is pretty cute as well.

19. Kittens are binary: full on, full off.

    Spice is my favorite Scamperbeast, so I’m delighted with this picture. It shows off all her swirly colors and stripes very well.

    I would risk smooching her right on the top point of the orange blotch. The facial lacerations would be worth it.

20. knowing cats, she could well be thinking..’yeah, go ahead and click. just know this- you will have to sleep sometime…you have a camera, but i have claws!’

21. Hmmm.. I wonder how close I could get to the kitty with my Nikon D3200, and if I should use the quiet mode or the 300mm zoom? Decisions, decisions….

22. As a lifelong cat lover, but relative newcomer to Mr. Scalzi’s writing, I just stumbled across this. I’ve had some cats that would utterly and completely relax like this. None of my current fuzzheads qualify, it’s oftentimes impossible to get decent photos of them because the slightest hint of a camera (even my phone) sends them scurrying away, or at least moving around enough to futz with the camera focus.

23. Heh. This had me pondering the aftermath of doing this with my old non-D SLR.

    Sneak… Sneak… Sneak… Sneak… Sneak… Focus… Squeeze…

    ***KLACK***

    I once snuck up on a field mouse this way as it was pigging out on top of the bird feeder. Whiskers was totally distracted by his food source so I managed to get to about a foot away. Poor wee thing nearly had a heart attack when the shutter went off and took off at mach 1 in the general direction of Away, taking a parabolic plunge off the pedestal into the pond, racing across the water and off into the scenery.

24. OK, I’m laughing out loud at Keeees’ Mach 1 Mouse. I needed that.