Rodney Campbell's Blog

So so wet in Sydney – that means not just waterfalls time… it’s fungi time! It had been so so long since we’d been out to shoot these tiny little shroom pedestals in the forest.

Put me on a Pedestal

NIKON D750 + TAMRON SP AF 90mm F2.8 Di Macro 1:1 272NII @ 90 mm, 1.3 sec at f/40, ISO 100

In a most unusual fashion Gerry and I started this shoot on a Sunday AFTERNOON. Thank heavens for that too – since sunrise was just bland grey.

Anyway on to the shrooms. This vertical image is my favourite of the session (and was the last of the day). I played with the lighting quite a bit to get this one right. Even then I had to take different frames with different aspects of the lighting I wanted and blend those manually in post. The final result is as I envisaged before starting the set so thankfully at least that paid off :). And the bug at just the right spot – well I’d like to say I totally planned that, all I can say is I did wait till it was visible in the frame to take the shot.

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger. To see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer click any of the images.

This nicely formed shroom was just growing out of the moss providing a perfect nondescript background canvas to the scene. Again some delicate adjustment to the lighting and it literally glows.

DeLight

NIKON D750 + TAMRON SP AF 90mm F2.8 Di Macro 1:1 272NII @ 90 mm, 2 sec at f/45, ISO 100

The lighting I’ve used for all these shots is a combination of:
– an LED macro ring light attached to the filter thread on the front of the lens – this allows me to control the intensity of the forward even light as well as whether it appears from the left or right or all evenly. This light basically gets me two things. 1) it allows me to see and focus in the darkness of the covered forest floor. 2) it allows me to control the overall ambient lighting allowing me to control the relative brightness of the foreground/background (as long as the background is further away)
– an LED torch with adjustable brightness – which I use as the main light source to selectively light the main subject from a specific angle

Inner Glow

NIKON D750 + TAMRON SP AF 90mm F2.8 Di Macro 1:1 272NII @ 90 mm, 1/2 sec at f/57, ISO 100

My daughters tell me the above fungi doesn’t look real :). This sort of semi translucent disc is sort of round and flat and when lit from slightly behind appears to glow from within.