LONG EARED HEDGEHOG
This adorable bundle of spines is capable of rolling into a ball. They are found from the eastern Mediterranean across Asia as far as China....
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This adorable bundle of spines is capable of rolling into a ball. They are found from the eastern Mediterranean across Asia as far as China.
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Apr, 2016Views
211
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Awards
Winner in Atypical Pets Photo Challenge
Peer Award
Top Choice
Absolute Masterpiece
Superb Composition
Outstanding Creativity
Magnificent Capture
Emotions
Impressed
Happy
Top Ranks
Top 30 rank
Top 10 rankTop 10 rank week 1Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo of the long-eared hedgehog while working as a wildlife biologist in Iran in the early 1970s.Time
The photo was taken near mid-day under cloudy conditions.Lighting
Cloudy near mid-day lighting is flat. The strength of the photo in this instance was dependent almost entirely on the power of the unusual subject to catch attention.Equipment
My camera at the time was an Olympus that used film. I used almost entirely slide film, most of which was Kodachrome 64. While considered among the best film at the time for accurately catching outdoor colors with minimum graininess, its fixed ISO was just 64.Inspiration
The long-eared hedgehog is an incredibly cute, amazing animal capable of encapsulating its body and appendages within a spiny ball. To give a sense of the animal's small size I had someone hold him in one hand.Editing
I did minimal post-processing such as cropping the photo more tightly.In my camera bag
My photo equipment ithat I currently use in the field consists of one camera and one lens, namely a Nikon D500 and a Nikkor 18 to 300 mm lens. The lens is sharp enough, camera tracking abilities good enough and the quality of vibration reduction system sufficient to catch the variety of photographic conditions I encounter in the field. Using a single ultra zoom lens also means not having to take time to switch lenses in the middle of a field shoot or risk getting dust on the photo processor. Almost all of my ViewBug challenge 170 plus wins and contest successes were taken with this equipment.Feedback
My goal in photographing animals is to try to capture those characteristics that exemplify their uniqueness. The hedgehog's curling itself into a protective spiny ball is an adaptation that very few other mammals are able to do.
