Last year when I found out we have these fly agaric mushrooms in the Blue Mountains, I was dead set on trying to find them. I missed the season last autumn and due to some slackness on my behalf, I pretty much missed it again this year. However, I managed to find a couple of photographable specimens, as most have by this day have withered away. I will not miss next year!
Taken on May 9, 2015 at Mount Wilson, in the upper Blue Mountains of NSW.
Canon EOS 5DMkIII, 100mm f/2.8 USM macro, ISO400, f/4, 1/200th, manual mode, tripod, remote, natural light, full frame, four image stack in Helicon Focus.
Lovely colours and DOF, I can see a faint rim of paler background around the toadstool. Lovely detail in the stype.
I can se the attraction of stacking though on a subject like this it is my guess that f16 and not too close would have yielded a good result.
Dianne, you're right, I was in two minds about that part of the frame. Despite being the sun's rays, it kind of really highlights the ULC.
Jonathan, I agree about the aperture selection you suggested at f/16. If I could have been dead level on the ground I would have stopped down and fired away. As I was slightly forced to angle the POV down, that's the reason for stacking to not get more unwanted detail in the BG in using a small aperture. Keeping it at f/4 and carefully focusing on the different parts of the mushroom allowed me to refrain from having a too detailed and busy background. So usually, I'd prefer not to muck around with extra processing. :)
Hi Akos,
Lovely subject and I like the tones and detail you captured. I can see Jonathan's point about a slight halo over the mushroom. Still a nice image.
Toadstool from a fairytale
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