Overcast, lots of rain this week and not been able to get out with the camera until yesterday. One advantage of this time of year though, is that it is Funghi time!
On the plus side, they taste great (if you know what to look for) and it gives us a great opportunity to study these organisms. On a negative note, it means laying on wet and muddy ground, to photograph them at their own level.
Shooting in these conditions, with sensible ISO (ideally less than ISO 400), a decent depth of field (f8 - f16) often results in low light levels and the need to use very low shutter speeds (typically around 1/15th - 1/50th sec). It is essential at these speeds, to use a tripod, capable of getting down to extremely low level and at some very strange angles.
For 'macro', there is only one tripod capable of dealing with almost any situation......the Benbo MK1. Although it is ridiculously heavy and setting it up, can be described as 'wrestling with an octopus'. When fitted with an off-centre ball head, it is one of the most flexible and amazing tripods on the market. Each of its legs and boom, can rotate around 360 degrees to cover any terrain and reach any angle. They can easily be bought second-hand for around £50.00, which is an absolute bargain!
In these circumstances, I also use my 'RF' Remote Trigger to avoid any vibration from pressing the shutter button.
Here's my tripod set-up, with my Nikon D500 and 70-200 f4 lens and below it, the resulting shot:
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| The final shot. - settings were 100mm, f16, 1/30th, ISO500 |
As you can see, at 100mm and f16, I was able to get sufficient depth of field to isolate the mushroom, achieving an 'out of focus' foreground and background.
The following shots were all taken during the same session and I have included the 'exif' settings for each shot, which I hope you will find helpful.
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| 145mm, f14, 1/30th, ISO280 |
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| 145mm, f14, 1/30th, ISO800 |
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| 200mm, f16, 1/60th, ISO100 |
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| 160mm, f13, 1/50th, ISO320 |
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| 122mm, f14, 1/15th, ISO280 |
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| 200mm, f16, 1/15th, ISO110 |
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| 95mm, f11, 1/30th, ISO280 |
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| 102mm, f11, 1/80th, ISO800 |
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| 200mm, f16, 1/30th, ISO560 |
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| 190mm, f16, 1/30th, ISO560 |
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| 102mm, f11, 1/15th, ISO250 |
I hope you enjoyed this blog, but please be careful if you plan on foraging for and eating wild mushrooms. Many are wonderful to eat, but many are also poisonous!
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