A Weekend of Mushrooms

Carl Hall

Carl Hall

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Carl
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Haven't used my digital gear since March so I thought I would head down to Thorncombe Wood near Dorchester on Sunday to take some photos of some mushrooms with my girlfriend. We had so much fun we decided to go to Swell Wood near Langport the next day too. All of these were taken on a EOS 5DmkII with Sigma 105mm f/2.8 Macro.

I don't have a lot of experience with macro work, and this is my first time shooting mushrooms, so any critiques or comments are welcome and appreciated. :)

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Thorncombe Wood Mushroom by Carl Hall, on Flickr

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Thorncombe Wood Mushroom by Carl Hall, on Flickr

-3-

Swell Wood Mushrooms by Carl Hall, on Flickr

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Swell Wood Mushroom by Carl Hall, on Flickr

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Swell Wood Mushroom by Carl Hall, on Flickr

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Swell Wood Mushrooms by Carl Hall, on Flickr
 
Nice set. Good clarity, I like the soft, mellow colours and some good subject separation. I like your eye for composition, although for my taste I might have (subject to what else might or might not have come into the frame) put a little more space above the subject in the first one and might have tried moving slightly to the left when capturing #4 so as to avoid the darker area at the top left which makes for a slightly uncomfortable (to my eye) boundary/area rather near to the subject which is out of keeping with the rest of the background and draws my eye away from the subject a bit.

The last one stands out for me. I very much like that.
 
I particularly like shot 3, I like the framing that you have achieved for that shot. A great idea and something which I might keep in mind. Mind you, I don't the the fungi knowledge that you seem to have!
 
GardenersHelper said:
Nice set. Good clarity, I like the soft, mellow colours and some good subject separation. I like your eye for composition, although for my taste I might have (subject to what else might or might not have come into the frame) put a little more space above the subject in the first one and might have tried moving slightly to the left when capturing #4 so as to avoid the darker area at the top left which makes for a slightly uncomfortable (to my eye) boundary/area rather near to the subject which is out of keeping with the rest of the background and draws my eye away from the subject a bit.

The last one stands out for me. I very much like that.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the in depth feedback :) I tried to pay attention to composition but I find it quite difficult to get close to the 'shrooms whilst keeping out all of the junk you don't want in the frame such as leaves and branches etc. I actually spent quite a lot of time "pruning" some unwanted stuff (dead stuff that had fallen around the mushrooms I mean, not pulling apart living things) to make my compositions cleaner. I'll make sure to keep an eye on my backgrounds more next time as it's something that I tend to forget about whilst concentrating on the subject :)

RaphaelSamad said:
I particularly like shot 3, I like the framing that you have achieved for that shot. A great idea and something which I might keep in mind. Mind you, I don't the the fungi knowledge that you seem to have!
Click to expand...

Thanks :) For that one I found loads of these little tiny mushrooms on a log and they kind of looked like a little settlement that you'd see in a movie where people live in huts on the sides of mountains. I tried to make the mushrooms look like this but I'm not sure I've quite managed to pull it off :LOL:

I know absolutely nothing about fungi :D I just wandered round the wood for a couple hours and looked for interesting looking mushrooms that hadn't been kicked or trampled. I was hoping to find the kind that are round and red with little white spots (I used to call them toadstools but apparently that's no longer correct??) but these little white ones were all that we found. Just bought a book on mushroom identification so I'll carry it around with me next time and try and learn a bit too :D
 
Interesting BOKEH on shots 1 and 2, what lens are you using?. Or am I right in thinking these have had blurs applied in PP?
 
Swissglover said:
Interesting BOKEH on shots 1 and 2, what lens are you using?. Or am I right in thinking these have had blurs applied in PP?
Click to expand...

I'm using the Sigma 105mm f/2.8 macro on an EOS 5Dmk2. All tripod mounted with ambient light. I believe the first two you mention were both shot wide open at f/2.8. There wasn't too much PP applied to any of them, I think I just bumped the exposure a little either way, darkened the blacks, added a bit of contrast and sharpened it. Oh, and got rid of some bits of dirt on the actual mushrooms (I need to take a small paintbrush with me next time and dust them off a little :D )
 
Oh actually, now I'm thinking about it the first two did have a bit more PP. I took two images at f/2.8 and adjusted the focus slightly in between shots (one for the front edge of the mushroom, and one for the top and side edges). I then layered these in Photoshop and masked them such that the whole mushroom was sharp. The bits that are masked are just the edges of the mushrooms themselves, so I'm not sure that this would affect the bohek in the background
 
Carl Hall said:
Oh actually, now I'm thinking about it the first two did have a bit more PP. I took two images at f/2.8 and adjusted the focus slightly in between shots (one for the front edge of the mushroom, and one for the top and side edges). I then layered these in Photoshop and masked them such that the whole mushroom was sharp. The bits that are masked are just the edges of the mushrooms themselves, so I'm not sure that this would affect the bohek in the background
Click to expand...
I think that explains what is going on in the background then, just looks a little odd to my eye but I am in no expert in macro work. Might be worth you looking at the unedited files and seeing how the backgrounds compare though, just to ensure your PP hasn't had any detrimental effect.
 
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