13 Days in the Life of an Amanita Muscaria

[cowshill]

Morchella, the series was shot in the plantation surrounding Burnhope Reservoir in Weardale. We walk there with our dog nearly every day, and once I started shooting this series I made a point of not missing any days. It's a good spot for quite a few of the fungi related to conifers. We have many of the amanitas, a few of the boletes, a variety of the russulas, not to mention far too many that are a complete mystery to me. This year, while little else has emerged yet, there have been dozens and dozens of a. muscaria coming up in several different patches. It is wonderful to walk through nearly every day and see what new has popped up during the late summer and autumn. But there are no hardwood areas anywhere close by, so I have yet to be introduced to that whole spectrum of fungi.

[FungiJohn]

Originally Posted by waynehicks1

I think a thread showcasing immature and 'past their best' images would be a welcome addition to the forum. For those of us with less experience, stumbling across an immature specimen can be very confusing sometimes. It's hard enough when they are mature!

Question for FungiJohn - Does your Sigma 105mm have some kind of image stabilization?

Regards

Wayne

Hi Wayne

No image stabilization on any of my lenses, nor is it required for Fungi Photography.

The importance lies with having a good quality tripod to allow a shutter speed between 1 and 20 seconds (and sometimes more!) in conjunction with apertures from f16 - f25.

I would also advise on not using flash unless you have good control over its output and understand the problems associated with colour balance. This is especially important where the species may have subtle colours or variation.

The Genus Russula is a good example.

John