Volvariella help.

[Iona F]

Took these the other day that I found at a loceal forest garden site. Immediately went to Volvariella, but it seems terrifically dark for gloiocephala, and whilst it appeared to be growing out of the ground, it's perfectly possible it was a hidden stump, and shamefully, as I was hurrying, I didn't investigate further...

It had a deep pink spore print, and was incredibly shiney on top, but felt smooth, not too sticky or gloopy.

Collins only lists 4 Volvariella sp. And without any more in depth sources, I'm stuck as to whether I have a very dark stubble rosegill, or something else. Would really appreciate a pointer! Appologies again for my inability to take a decent photo in my house without sunlight.

Thanks,

Iona

[Lancashire Lad]

Hi,

Can't help with the Volvariella, sorry, we don't seem to get them around here and I'm not familiar with them at all.

As for indoor photography:
Your pics look to be blurry which will be due to camera shake with longish exposures. They also look slightly out of focus. (although that might be the result of the camera shake too).

It should be a simple matter to sort things out so that you can take good quality shots indoors.

Firstly at these sorts of distances, if your camera has one, then you should switch on the macro setting.

Secondly, exposures by ambient light will alaways be on the slow side, so either use a tripod, or, if you don't have one, rest the camera on a small pile of books or something similar so that it can't move during the exposure.

Thirdly, almost all cameras these days will have an in-built self timer, and most have the option for 2 second delay or 10 second delay.

If you switch the self timer on before pressing the shutter button, - assuming that the camera is resting on something reasonably solid rather than being hand held, it has time to become completely still (i.e. all vibrations etc. due to pressing the button have time to subside) before the exposure is made.

On final thing - which has relevance particularly to indoor fungi photography:-
If the lighting is via whatever room lighting is available, then colour casts might be induced onto the shots because of the colour temperature of the lamps involved. - so you might end up with shots where th fungus looks the wrong colour. Setting the camera's white balance with respect to whatever light source is being used can help retain more accurate colour rendering.

Sort those small things out, and your indoor photos will be spot on.

Regards,
Mike.

[Iona F]

Thanks Mike. Very helpful indeed. Particularly the anti shake techniques!

The colour of the light in this instance didn't make too much difference, other than perhaps depicting the gills as slightly darker, but they were very close to that, much closer than one would expect of a fungus with the english name 'rosegill'!

I shall endeavour to improve on the photography front.

Thanks

Iona

[Ditiola]

Hi Iona

I found a similar Volvariella last week and I thought it was to dark but it keyed out as V. goiocephala, and I read in one of my books that the spring/summer ones are pale and the autumn one are dark

Peter

[Ditiola]

This is the one I found




Peter

[watsthat]

Hi

V. gloiocephala is quite common in East Yorkshire and was quite prolific upto about 2 weeks ago. This pic also shows a dark centre to the cap from about 2 weeks ago and not particularly pink gills. I think Peter`s pic is in a newly sown cereal crop and that seems to be its commonest habitat in my experience.

Cheers

Pete

[Iona F]

Originally Posted by Ditiola

This is the one I found




Peter

Thanks Peter...

Does look a lot like mine, just stubbier stipe. In the absence of having any decent Keys of my own (that'll be all my spare cash over the winter!), for the moment it's going to have to go down in my mind as 'probably gloiocephala'. These fungi don't make it easy do they... And neither have Collins on this occasion!