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What makes a great mushroom photo?


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With the mushroom season getting ready to start and with some here posting on Mushroom Observer, I thought I would ask the question, what makes a great mushroom photo? What makes a photo pleasing to the eye and what types of photos are useful for ID and teaching?

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Some universal rules will always apply. Try to get the light source behind you or to the side without creating undue shadows with your head or other body parts. A little composition though won't hurt. Try to capture the natural setting or even arrange it to make it more appealing. Move a leaf, add a leaf etc. Try to take your time to focus the very best you can. Hold the camera as steady as possible or use a tripod and with a digital camera, take lots of photos and keep the best. A good FREE editor like Irfanview will help with sizing, one touch 'fixes' and things like that.

ID is a different story. You need to be a bit analytical. I'm new at this myself but would suggest a shot of the mushroom as it grows, then the cap (if it is a capped variety), then a close up of the gills, the stem (stype), the base, any collar or veil, and maybe even a cross section of the stem. All need to be as clear and in focus as you can manage. Transferring and posting images can have an effect on color so a good description of the coloration or patterns on all parts of the mushroom should accompany the images ... and the spore print if you make one and can get a photograph of it.

I'm sure I forgot, or don't know some other improtant points. I'm also sure you'll get more excellent input here.

Great question.

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I think in-situ photos are the most pleasing to the eye. Some feel that for an in-situ to be authentic, the environment within the photo should not be altered. But I usually clean things up a bit so the the mushroom(s) is the star of the show. I think I may have gone a little overboard sweeping the area around this forest morel. But this beautiful subject really deserves all of one's attention.

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In-situ photos are also useful for ID purposes. One experiences the "gestalt" of the mushroom when viewing a well-conceived in-situ.

But for ID purposes, posed photos of harvested material are essential; so that one sees the mushroom form a variety of perspectives. Photos emphasizing the fertile surface (gills/pores/veins/spines), the base of the stalk, the cap surface, and any interesting feature like a ring on the stalk or material clinging to the edge of the cap should be included.

This species of red and yellow bolete occurs annually in my back yard. Colors are a bit muted in this photo. Species...? Maybe Boletus campestris, B. fraternus, or B. rubellus. I've been calling them B. camapestris.

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A mushroom sectioned lengthwise is a good thing to photograph. These Cyanoboletus (Boletus) pulverulentus exhibit strong staining on cut flesh.

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A harvested specimen posed along with an in-situ specimen works well. You sorta get the best of both approaches. These grisettes (Amanita section Vaginatae) occur virtually every summer on a sunny slope near my home. The species is currently unnamed.

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And remember, even with good photos a positive ID may be elusive. I never did figure out what these are!

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Light and focus. A sharp image of the subject showing accurate colors is the ticket. I like the macro zoom close ups that dont need cropped. I always try to get level or lower than the subject to preferably catching cap with gills, teeth, pores etc. Gloomy days seem to be better than sunny ones in my experiences.

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That's some great feedback. Those are some nice photos DaveW! I think possibly taking the time to produce good photos is something I need to concentrate on. I'm always anxious to keep looking for more mushrooms and of course sitting in one spot taking photos and feeding mosquitoes is hard. The one thing I really enjoyed about the time I couldn't look for mushrooms this winter, was looking at the mushroom photos I took last summer and fall. Doing that really gets me excited about the coming mushroom season.

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Like dualsetters says, making use of light is essential. Too much glare hides features and changes color. Too much shade mutes color. I use a translucent white umbrella to filter direct sunlight and a homemade reflector to throw light onto the shady side of the subject. The reflector is a piece of cardboard with a slightly crinkled piece of aluminum foil glued to the surface. On a cloudy days I may not bother with these.

I take multiple pics of a given subject. That morel photo seen above... one of probably 30 or more photos devoted to this subject. I load photos into my computer asap and delete from the camera asap. It takes some time to then sort through them and name the ones I want to keep. Photos are titled by Latin binomial (if I think I know this much about the ID), location, date, and a number if there's more than one keeper for the given subject. These get moved into a permanent folder.

I use macro setting on my camera. I generally rely upon my ability to hold still for a second while the photo is snapped. But often I get down onto the ground, or lean up against a tree or rock to steady myself. A bean-bag may be used to stabilize the camera. I try different distances from the subject... one foot, two feet, three feet. Sometimes I try real close-up and get lucky.

Another thing to consider is that the camera often tries to focus more upon the background than the subject. Try to center the subject and fill up as much of the frame as possible with it. In macro setting, the camera wants to find one specific distance that it recognizes as focal. So try to get as much of what you want to capture into a single plane and point the camera perpendicular to this plane. If an in-situ subject is positioned beside a rock or some other backdrop, I try to arrange for this to serve as the background in the photo. This way the camera isn't "confused" about there being a wide range of background distances. It's easier to get accurate pics of posed specimens than in-situ. For a particularly interesting specimen I take photos (posed) in several different locations which offer different lighting options.

One thing I haven't quite figured out yet is why the camera sometimes adds too much yellow, too much red, or too much green. Sometimes this is due to the surroundings, like a hardwood canopy of green leaves. But often it turns out that a few photos of a given subject are redder, yellower, or greener than the others, even when all were shot in the same setting.

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One thing I did read on, if you're using a compact 'shirt pocket' point and shoot digital camera, you will often get better results to back up to 3 or 4 (or more) feet from the subject then use the camera's telephoto feature to fill the frame. I tried this with a little Fuji AX350 I often carry in the woods. It works.

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