12th October More Fungi
As a result of the publicity given to the Fungi Forage on 5th October we were invited to a private woodland west of Mormon Hill to find more fungi.
5th october a fungi forage in drinnies wood
On 5th October seven intrepid members of Fraserburgh Photographic Society ventured into the little known parts of Drinnies Wood near Fetrangus. Our mission was to photograph fungi.
Finding the fungi was the easy part of the adventure. They were everywhere. Fungi of all shapes colours and sizes littered the forest floor in places. They were in the tees, growing in the moss, on dead tree branches and in the pine needles.
Photographing them was a little trickier. First you had to get down to fungi level and that meant lying down on the damp forest floor. Getting enough light into the camera was another problem. Some of us had torches. The LED lanterns were very effective, Without a torch it meant choosing a slow shutter speed. We all know that if the shutter speed is slow you have to keep your camera very still to avoid camera shake and a blurred photo and that means using a tripod. But how do you get a tripod to work at ground level. Some tripods do let you do this but it means working the camera upside down! The alternative is to rest the camera on the ground. OK if you have a cloth or something to put under it to keep it clean and dry. Another problem, which ever route you choose for a slow shutter speed is the ground was very spongy, Keeping the camera still was not easy. Of course once you had done all that you had to get the right composition. 'Now where was that solid bit of ground that I had my tripod on?'
What other camera settings do you put into your camera? To get enough light into the camera as wide an aperture as possible? No. Some of the fungi are small so you are very close to them and the problem created by a wide aperture is a narrow depth of field and getting it all in focus. So you have to have a narrow aperture and up the ISO and sacrifice image quality or go for a longer shutter speed and try to avoid any camera movement. Another option is to do some focus stacking. Taking several shots with different foal points and merging them in the computer This does mean avoiding camera movement is essential to avoid ghosting in the final image. Just touching the camera in the soft ground conditions can move the camera a fraction. Adjusting the focus ring between shots will almost certainly move the camera. Here is one of Marks images which I hope he won't mind being shown here. Mark took two images one with lighting and one without which he mas merged. You can see the ghosting and he didn't even touch the camera between shots!
What other camera settings do you put into your camera? To get enough light into the camera as wide an aperture as possible? No. Some of the fungi are small so you are very close to them and the problem created by a wide aperture is a narrow depth of field and getting it all in focus. So you have to have a narrow aperture and up the ISO and sacrifice image quality or go for a longer shutter speed and try to avoid any camera movement. Another option is to do some focus stacking. Taking several shots with different foal points and merging them in the computer This does mean avoiding camera movement is essential to avoid ghosting in the final image. Just touching the camera in the soft ground conditions can move the camera a fraction. Adjusting the focus ring between shots will almost certainly move the camera. Here is one of Marks images which I hope he won't mind being shown here. Mark took two images one with lighting and one without which he mas merged. You can see the ghosting and he didn't even touch the camera between shots!
All that said we got some cracking photos and some great experience on which we can build.
22nd september exploring rathen
A well attended outing to Rathen on a good day produced some great photos
21st september fraserburgh football club
On Saturday 21st September we were the guests of Fraserburgh Football club and took photos during their cup game with Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic. Although the score was not good the photos came out well.
17th September Lena LEVY'S studio
The first outing of 2019/20 was on 17th September when four of us went to Lena Levy's art studio outside Mintlaw. Lenas' studio was open as part of the NEOS (North East Open Studio) event.