Tre funghi

[Bruce Murden]

Not all mushrooms require that you get down to ground level to photograph. These gems were growing at eye level on a tree right beside the path to Portland, Oregon's Bridal Veil Falls. My fellow photographers all walked past this tree without seeing these. Keep you eyes and mind open on your way to your photo destination -- you can find wonderful subjects before you get where you're going!

Nikon D80, Nikon 105 macro, ISO 640, F32, 0.6 sec, gold reflector beneath subject

[Aristotle Georgiou]

Fantastic shot Bruce! Really like the composition, interesting subject and like the green foliage.
Excellent work.

[Ed Vatza]

Terrific image, Bruce. Excellent composition. I love the juxtaposition of a creamy smooth subject against a highly detailed background. It looks beautiful. The whites are absolutely perfect. You hit a home run with this one.

[Tony Kirkby]

Hi Bruce
I photograph lots of fungi and I wish this were mine! Nice dof and whites are perfect.

Tony

[Julie Kenward]

Beautiful!!! I bet those other photographers wanted to shoot themselves when they saw what they walked by (assuming they saw your photo later on.) I always try to remember that it's not about the destination but about the journey and keep my eyes moving for the unexpected to show up.

May I ask? Were the fungi really this clean or did you have to do some cloning/healing to get them this perfect? I was just wondering if their being on the side of a tree instead of on the ground in the dirt made a difference as to their pristine condition.

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Beautifully composed image. Love the way u've placed the 3 mushrooms in the frame.

[Robert O'Toole]

Very nice work Bruce, very nicely composed and details really show up well with the even lighting.

Tony and Ed, I hate always having to be the bad cop but you really need to think about monitor calibration. the whites are cooked on this image, especially on the largest mushroom. Dont worry I think uncalibrated monitors are the norm here on BPN. A few days ago Klaus posted an image with light gray highlights and the group told him he had blown highlights: http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ad.php?t=16168
Now its the opposite :eek:

Robert

[Robert O'Toole]

Image with Cal strip overlay.

[Bruce Murden]

In a well shaded forest on a sunny spring day, there is a lot of green light shining on these mushrooms, so of course it needed some white balancing, knocked down the hot spots, and cleaned up some dirty spots and a tiny growth that didn't go with the trio. As you can see, they were relatively clean, and I agree it was probably from their height. Here is the original capture (cropped down to eliminate more of the greenery).