COLORS OF THE MUSHROOMS
And there they are finally. The mushrooms. Very hidden, but here in the spotlight. Beautifully blasted by the sun they light up together with the leaves and the...
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And there they are finally. The mushrooms. Very hidden, but here in the spotlight. Beautifully blasted by the sun they light up together with the leaves and the green of the forest in the colors of the autumn. You just have to see them. So look up (and please let live!).
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Oct, 2016Views
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People's Choice in The fun of Fungi Photo Challenge
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Behind The Lens
Location
I'm living in Southern Germany close to the Lake Constance in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg and near the Austrian and Swiss Alps. The "Upper Swabia" region is also called "Allgäu". There are many hills and small mountains that are often thickly covered with trees. Green fields, rape fields and fruit plantages. To photograph the mushrooms, you have to find them first. That’s not so easy! If you are not a professional mushroom-picker or collector like me, you need the support of those people who know it. So: Mushrooms can be found in Germany in dense undergrowth and a mixture of deciduous trees and conifers. Where it is particularly uncomfortable to walk along with a camera. After a long search I found a suitable forest area and began my search for mushrooms. For four days I was on the road. And then I had made about 1,000 photos of German mushrooms.Time
It was late afternoon on this fantastic autumn day in late September 2016. The sun was already very deep and its golden rays fell through the trees of the forest. The light was soft and made nature appear in soft colors. In the forest itself, it was otherwise very shady, the foliage and the moss on the forest floor were already damp and slippery. I think, here in Germany September and October are the best months to find fungi and to be able to photograph them well. In the morning is certainly a good time to capture the little creatures for eternity or even in the late afternoon/early evening sun. But then they are usually only available for a few minutes.Lighting
In the first moment you may think mushrooms can't be very difficult to photograph. They do not move and do not run away. When the sun is shining, everything is good and you just have to focus. And then everything is fine. But that’s not true. Fungi do not always grow on the ground, on the meadow or in a forest in a perfect visible way. No - they often hide under branches, moss, grass or foliage. And if that is the case you would like to photograph them in their natural environment without creating an synthetic "cleane environment". This means, however, that the small plant stands very often in the dark and is not exactly illuminated. What can be done? One possibility is to use a not too bright flashlight at a sufficient distance to illuminate the fungus in a suitable way. But please do not use too strong light. This is otherwise unnatural and spurious. Use indirect, soft and, above all, warm light. The only way to do this is to go on your knees. Directly down to the forest floor. So to speak face to face with the desired mushroom or the group of fungi. And then you must have the correct exposure time without the photo later looks blurred. Not so easy in this shadowy area ..... You can use perhaps with a slightly increased ISO value.Equipment
I took the photo with a Nikon D750. I used a f/2.8 105 mm lens of Sigma without flash. It is captured with an exposure time of 1/10 s at f/13 105 mm and ISO 250.Inspiration
When you had looked for mushrooms four days long and finally had found them, it is a new challenge every time to put the fungi into the right light. To decide whether from above, from the side or from below. In the group or individually. This little white mushroom had really hit me, because he seemed like a "Single" there. Lighted from behind, in the middle of the lush green moss. Like a small lighthouse in a wood that came out of the earth and said, "Come and see me, here I am and here I stand, and please do not step on me!" A beautiful little fellow. But I did not find a unique being named "Fly Agaric" (in German: "Fliegenpilz") despite the greatest efforts at this time. It has a white stem and a bright red cap with white dots on it. Very photogenic. And very poisonous. It often grows under birch trees. I found those trees, but I had'nt found this kind of good looking fungi. This year I will go back on a journey and search for him.Editing
Quite honestly, this photo I have not worked with so much in Lightroom (Photoshop was not used at all). It is and it was captured in a quite perfect way that I had to change it only in a few small steps. A bit more dynamic, contrast, clarity and depth, reduction of black parts. The exposure values were raised since the original photo was still too dark. At the bottom of the picture I "cut" a piece of the moss to present the mushroom in a better view.In my camera bag
My Nikon D800 or D750, a gorilla pod, a large carbon tripod with ball head and panoramic slider. If I have a special focus, that I want to photograph, I'll pack only a macro, one or two telephoto lenses or a good wide-angle lens in my backpack. Otherwise, I always have a 14-24 mm, 105 mm, 70-200 mm, 200-500 mm lens, a teleconverter, a cordless remote trigger, and various gray filters f.e. for long-term photos. Don't forget some memory cards and batteries. And there is an iPad Mini 4 for the control of time lapse recording (LRTimelapse).Feedback
A few important photography specifics and aspects on this topic I have already described above. From my point of view you should not photograph mushrooms - whether big or small - in a simple way from above. Thus their growth, their form, the so-called ribs of their cap, are not seen at all. This means that you must always go to a real photographic level with him. So all the way down to earth! The camera on a very short, small tripod (for example a small Gorilla Pod) with horizontally wide spread legs. So the image will not be blurred because of the often longer exposure times. The right lens is very important. Best a macro lens. I used the 105 mm lens. This always gives a beautiful bokeh of the background. For your knees a small Styrofoam mat is recommended. You can sit on it and this mat won't make your pants wet on the ever damp ground. And have always something to drink with you. In the long run mushrooms photography is quite exhausting.
