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How to shoot fungi
Techniques
24 October 2007 12:22
Autumn fungi may lack the more showy beauty of spring and summer flowers, but their many shapes and textures make them an excellent subject for close-up photography.
Locating the fungi can be tricky. Many species grow in dark,shady areas – making lighting an issue – and they’re also often found in the least accessible and least photogenic spots. Typical backgrounds include decaying leaves and broken twigs which, in conjunction with the dappled lighting of the forest floor, means there will be plenty of distracting colours and highlights to draw attention away from your main subject.
As they grow among the debris of the forest, it’s worth taking along a soft blower brush to clean off the worst before you take your shot. There will probably be some marks you can’t remove without damaging the fragile cap. But a few seconds’ work here can save you hours of retouching in your imaging software.
Much of the detail and interest is on the underside of the subject, so get down to the level of the subject and be prepared to end up lying in the leaf-litter (take a groundsheet with you). Make sure your camera is kept steady using a low-angle tripod. We used a Manfrotto model, but many allow you to spread the legs for a lower position. A small table-top model is also an excellent, if less versatile, option.
Once you’ve got your low viewpoint to see the underside of the plant, you’ll usually find it’s deep in shadow. Use a reflector to bounce some light back into the shadow areas to reveal detail and texture that otherwise would be lost. We used a small Lastolite reflector, but a simple piece of A4 white card or plastic can make an excellent DIY alternative.
Your choice of aperture in these low-light conditions is crucial. By shooting at a wide aperture such as f/4 you can throw the background out of focus beyond depth-of-field, but a smaller aperture such as f/16 can be used to retain a sense of context. Using a wide aperture means that only a tiny area of the fungi will be in sharp focus, so focus on the most photogenic part of the plant, usually the front of the cap or where the gills are visible, allowing the rest to fall out of focus. To ensure the whole subject is sharp you’ll need to use a small aperture of at least f/16, so keep an eye on the background to make sure that this doesn’t become too well-defined and distracting.