Friday, September 4, 2009

Moonscape Mushroom

I don't remember seeing this type of mushroom in our grass before our recent rains, and it was interesting to watch how they changed over a couple of days and then died. They opened like an umbrella and then turned inside out before turning brown. This image is an early stage and is a composite of 3 separate images to try to get as much detail in focus as I could.

Nikon D200, 60mm macro lens with +4 closeup filter at f5 and 1/1250th, +.85 exposure compensation, cloudy whitebalance
Post processing: combined 3 exposures and used a mask to hide the blurry areas, Touch of Light on the stem, Popsickle by Kubota in Softlight mode to emphasize the details, Black and white Full Moon and Black and White Warm and Deep by Kubota

4 comments:

  1. Very nice Cindi!

    I don't even own a macro lens but every time I see a macro shot as nice as this one I am determined to get one!

    Did you combine the 3 exposures manually in Photoshop or did you use a plugin?

    Again, nice work!
    Barry

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  2. Thanks Barry, and you definitely need a macro lens! It opens up whole worlds and I especially like to use it on cloudy days because shadows don't obscure the details. Maybe Santa will bring you one this year. I combined all the images manually, which takes a lot of checking and turning the layers on and off and I really should download that CombineZM program.

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  3. Really fine shot. The lighting is outstanding. I can just image you shooting this somewhere deep in a dark forest--I know that is not where you took it, but. . .

    This photo makes me want to study the mushroom more so that I can see all the details and the way the light falls on it.

    Great job.

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  4. Most mushrooms look about the same to me but you have made this one look unique. And you worked very hard with all the software steps to do it. I know that a lot of photographers says that you need to get the image right when shot but you have demonstrated that you can add some features to improve the picture with the use of software. Nice job.

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