Japanese Wall Garden

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I don't reckon you could arrange a Terrarium scene better than this 🙂 perched about 3 foot off the ground on the side of a fern trunk was this red little fungi, I wish I had taken a wide angle shot to give it all some context, but for now you'll have just do with my dodgy description 🙂 needless to say, it was a fairly easy little fungi to spot and was one of the first I noticed walking down this track, its crazy just to see where these things spawn from and more impressively where they survive, albeit only for several days.

Go West

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Ever remember that 80/90's band the Petshop boys? and the song Go West with that crazy ass film clip. This little fungi reminded me of the dudes doing that motion 🙂

you go little fungi, rocking the world.

PS. now go and watch the film clip and re-live some more that naughty nineties action

Your all hands

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Its another world down there on the bush floor, in the space of a few square metres the number of diverse (that's my politicially correct way of saying it) fungi striking a blow for freedom is amazing, all of which you would miss unless you stop and get down to the ground level and look around.

This fungi was particularly colourful and caught my eye for looking like a bunch of hands reaching up out of the ground, a excellent image for some kids bedtime stories when they refuse to go to sleep 😉

Panoramic view

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Look I'll make it all manageable 🙂

This little red fungi had so much lovely green stuff (technical term for some kinda green mossy stuff – clearly I am not a botanist 🙂 ) That it just had to be taken with a wide view to show it off, hence the panoramic view 🙂 3 shots stitched together.

This fungi has had some local take a chomp outta it, clearly it was a bit slow on the red is poisonous thing I guess 🙂

Small.. and then there is really small

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what is so cool about fungi is that they vary in shape, colour and sizes, kinda hard to get bored of them… It is not until you stand still in the one spot, close enough to the ground, (thats kinda a challenge for me at the best of times) do you realise how many fungi are out there, a cursory scan of an area will almost guarantee that you do not see any, but.. look further and closer and they are everywhere.

This little one I noticed after crouching down and photographing a different larger one. It really is tiny, you can see the twig it is attached to is only about 5mm thick.

Where is the Fairy?

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Probably one of the better focus stacked macros I have done, this one is created from 10 shots in total, each taken with the flash off camera to the right diffused with a white diffuser thingy..

I had the camera pretty well sitting on the ground and used the live view to compose the shot, I then reverted back to viewfinder to achieve the focus on the stalk since the liveview focus can be a bit flakey, then simply wound the focus ring in and out to get the depth of field, each time I just checked the image to see where the focus slice was and when it had past the front of the fungi I knew I had enough frames..

Exif love:
D750 coupled with Nikkor 55mm f2.8 @ 55mm Aperture: f11 and Shutter Speed: 1/60s
ISO 400
Lightning goodness : SB600 off to the right triggered thru onboard flash

https://blog.avernus.com.au/wheres-the-fairy/

The Indicator

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I always knew that frogs were a environmental indicator, however I have been educated in the fact that fungi and also a key environmental indicator, specifically relating to air quality. Whilst this little specimen is healthy and happy growing on the side of a bit of bark in the damp, dark undergrowth, there are are some fungi which when exposured to pollutants grow and age in a different way, one of which causes the fungi gills to grow/form on the top creating a rose shaped fungi, which is called Rosecomb… apparently this is bad 🙁

Focus stacking, on the other hand is good for fungi 🙂 it allows a much greater depth of field in a macro image, particularly where the subject is super small 🙂 did you like that segway ?

This image is a stack of about nine shots, basically all it is taking a slice from extra picture which is in focus and blending them together to create a nice sharp image with the whole subject, in this case the fungi and a bit of the bark. I find that +Adobe Photoshop does a good job, however often there needs to be a bit of the manual alignment to get things to look decent.

The process goes alittle like this…

> find cracking little fungi -> position camera, tripod and body as close as possible, the challenge here is to do it without getting dirty and without moving fungi 😉
> take several shots with the focus changed a bit…you know.. start with the stalk in focus then work forward and aft of that.

Load into stack -> autoalign – > select layers -> auto blend (with stack) -> manually brush in bits where photoshop lacks awesomeness… 🙂 -> edit per normal process.

Exif love:
D750 coupled with Nikkor 55mm f2.8 @ 55mm Aperture: f/29 and Shutter Speed: 1/60s
ISO 400
Lightning goodness : SB600 off to the left triggered thru onboard flash with gerry holding a diffuser in one hand, kneeling on the ground and pressing the shutter with the other 😉

https://blog.avernus.com.au/the-indicator/

Cling to Hope

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Hang on to the green stuff man! it only takes a well placed sizeable water drop to knock any one of these little fungi for six 🙂 There were several casualties whilst i was there ;( rip.
Its been awhile since I have chased any fungi and there is something disturbingly refreshing about getting your knees dirty whilst your head is 3 inches from the wet, mossy ground!

Techie data:
D7000 with Nikkor 55mm micro (with missing focus ring 🙂 ) @ 55mm Aperture: f/22, Shutter 1/60 seconds
ISO 800
SB600 on top and foldout diffuser wandering out there from somewhere 😉

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed 🙂