Fun with Fungi!
Took a visit to the New Forest on a Fungi hunt today. Took a tripod, Canon 50D, Canon 100mm F2.8 Macro Lens, a 430 ex and 580 ex Flashguns, some flash gels, a ST-E2 flash controller and a mat to keep dry with.
The first location I headed to was Matley Wood, but currently there are not many fungi showing (it is normally a great location). However I did find a nice Fly Agaric to shoot there in natural light.
Fly Agaric
I cut my loses there and then headed to the Knightwood Oak enclosure, where some more fungi were present.
First I found this nice backlit fungi on a fallen tree, which let me get under it, dial in some +positive exposure compensation to capture the sunlight through its gills.
Sunlit Fungi
Then a big crop of fungi presented a nice abstract image
Fungi Abstract
Then an array of fungi on a log gave this nice fungi shot.
Natural Light Fungi.
So – why did I bring all those flash accessories – well I wanted to play with some coloured flash lighting for some more surreal looks. The next two shots are lit from below and above. The 430 ex was on the floor pointing up to the gills, whilst I held the 580ex above to send light down. The camera was on a tripod and a 2sec timer was used. Both flashes were covered with a gel – Orange or Blue. The two shots show the effects of lighting them this way.
First with the orange light at the top.
Blue and Orange Lit Fungi.
And then the reverse.
Orange and Blue Lit Fungi.
