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Jim Poor
02-11-2008, 02:31 PM
Here is the fungus from the other day zoomed out a bit.

In the first post, I was trying to avoid the "bad spot" right center of the "stem," but I also considered (and decided against) using it as an anchor.

I really wanted to get a dark BG, but since the park closes at sunset, that may be out of the question.

I'm trying to figure out how to best approach this for my next trip out there. The fungus was beyond the MFD of the 200-400 which was on a tripod pointed nearly vertically for this shot, and hand held for others. So that puts the fungus at least 15-ish feet up in the tree considering my height.

I could have scooted left to avoid the bright sky and got all tree trunk in the BG, but would have put me less parallel to the right side of the fungus, which is the flatter of the two.

I'm going to try the 200-400 stopped all the way down, and may even try the 600 with the tripod legs collapsed.

I'm figuring a way to get close with the 105mm, but figure I better talk to the park ranger before putting a ladder up there.

All advice is welcome and actively solicited.

D3
200-400 @ 200mm
1/60 @ F-11 (Need to stop way down next time)
Fill Flash

Post,
Cropped, Curves, Contrast, Resize, Sharpen, S/H, in that order (I'm finding that I like S/H after sharpening for some images.)

John Cooper
02-11-2008, 07:03 PM
Hi Jim, yes its nice to have a record of the entire subject but I think your ultra-macro treatment showing the interesting gill patterns in your earlier post was the best approach here - IMO. Fungi are one of my favourite macro subjects!!

Mike Moats
02-11-2008, 07:16 PM
Hey Jim, I would love to shoot some tight shots on this, a lot of cool abstracts working in there. Very nice job capturing this with very nice sharp details. I would clone in some bark into the upper left corner, to much contrast of the white next to the fungi. Well done.

Robert Amoruso
02-11-2008, 07:35 PM
Agree with Mike on the clone and I would like to see just a bit more room at the close edges. Other than that a fine image expertly rendered.

Jim Poor
02-11-2008, 07:42 PM
Thanks.

The parts of this subject that interest me most are: the flatter area on the right side as a whole, the fan shaped "lobe" just to the right of top center, and the little curly piece top center. Because of the cone shape, I don't think I can do much with the left and keep it all sharp.

I definitely agree on the upper left corner. I just got APTATS-1 today so that might be a good project for it.