Photographing Fungi

[Geoff F]

One recommendation if you struggle to get started with fungi keys, John.

An Initial Guide to the Identification of Mushrooms and Toadstools by Paul Nichol. Available from Amazon and other outlets.

A simple user friendly easy to follow set of keys. I was getting nowhere with the keys in my large fungi encyclopaediac book but this little publication usually gets me to the correct family. Thereafter you need something more detailed.

It was recommended when I took a fungi identification course.

[Cantab]

One recommendation if you struggle to get started with fungi keys, John.

An Initial Guide to the Identification of Mushrooms and Toadstools by Paul Nichol. Available from Amazon and other outlets.

A simple user friendly easy to follow set of keys. I was getting nowhere with the keys in my large fungi encyclopaediac book but this little publication usually gets me to the correct family. Thereafter you need something more detailed.

It was recommended when I took a fungi identification course.

Geoff, is this book focussed on UK fungi or perhaps also North America? It's available theough the Canadian Amazon site but the publishing info gives no clue about where it was written.

[Geoff F]

It is for the UK/Europe but because it only goes to family level I assume much of your fungi families will be similar.

[NorthernFocus]

Of the set as shot I like the second shot best, John. Nicely exposed, good colors, etc. No.1 shows all of the imperfections in the tops of the fungi. 3 and 4 have the lighting issues.

[JohnRostron]

One recommendation if you struggle to get started with fungi keys, John.

An Initial Guide to the Identification of Mushrooms and Toadstools by Paul Nichol. Available from Amazon and other outlets.

A simple user friendly easy to follow set of keys. I was getting nowhere with the keys in my large fungi encyclopaediac book but this little publication usually gets me to the correct family. Thereafter you need something more detailed.

It was recommended when I took a fungi identification course.

Thanks Geoff, I have ordered it. £10 at Amazon.co.uk.

I do have two fairly comprehensive Fungus guides, but something to easily get down to family will help.

John

[JohnRostron]

Of the set as shot I like the second shot best, John. Nicely exposed, good colors, etc. No.1 shows all of the imperfections in the tops of the fungi. 3 and 4 have the lighting issues.

Yes, I like #2 as a good photograph. It is the issues in #3 and #4that are the burden of this posting.

John

[JohnRostron]

Following Dave's advice, I returned to the woods yesterday with the Canon Hackers Development Kit SD card in my PowerShot. This records images both as DNG and Jpeg files. I also took along a couple of LED light bars, although I could only handle one at a time.

The original fungus tuft I photographed was not there, but there were several others. I did manage to find one where I could position my camera below the cap level to photograph the gills. The LED bar did provide some extra light from below.

#1 This is the image based on the Jpeg taken by the camera, just cropped with a slight sharpening.


I loaded the DNG file into Affinity Photo and adjusted the exposure minus two stops. The gills looked fine, but not the stem or branch. I added some clarity (30%) and saved as a Jpeg. I also began again with the same DNG, adjusted the Clarity, and saved without adjusting the Exposure. I then combined these two Jpegs as an HDR stack (again in Affinity) and saved the 'Natural' tone-mapped image.
#2 With Exposure Adjustment and HDR processing.


Whilst this is far from being an ideal image, you can see the underside of the cap clearly and it is distinct from the overexposed background.

This demonstrates clearly that shooting in RAW/DNG is essential to resolve these peculiar lighting conditions.

I think that this is also the Velvet Shank. My recommended Fungus Family ID book should be arriving today, so I will try to confirm this.

John

[kazuyar]

does the cannon powershot do high speed sync flash?
ive been experimenting with it recently and i think it would work really well in this situation

[Dave Humphries]

Does the Canon Powershot do high speed sync flash?

I wonder; does it need HSS Kaz?

I'm purely guessing here, but as a non-interchangeable lens camera, won't it have a lens iris style shutter, allowing flash sync at any speed?

[kazuyar]

your probably right, i know very little about cannon

[JohnRostron]

does the cannon powershot do high speed sync flash?
ive been experimenting with it recently and i think it would work really well in this situation

No. As Dave says, this is a fixed lens camera with a shutter built into the lens. Ideally I would be using my DSLR and a ring flash, as I do for fungi in the open, but these were very poorly positioned to do this, growing on fallen logs, typically with other fallen logs just where you don't want them.

John

[kazuyar]

i watched a program on TV where they said that making spore patterns could help with identifying fungi, they had 2 identical looking mushrooms, indistinguishable from each other, the only way to tell them apart was by removing the stalk and then leaving them on a piece of paper, put a drop of water on the cap then waiting a few hours, one left a dark pattern and one left a light pattern. id never heard of spore patterns before and found it quite interesting, but of course that means plucking the fungi which you might not want to do.

[Geoff F]

I had tried spore prints with very little success then I read about a slightly different method.

Prepare the cap as before, then place on a bit of clean glass and cover with ordinary kitchen cling film. Leave for several hours, preferably over night.

This gives a crisp result and you can get a true colour by placing various backgrounds underneath the glass.

Old picture frame glass is ideal.

While I leave any single, possibly rare, fungi alone it doesn't cause any serious problems if just one person removes one cap; providing you can get there before the slugs eat everything!