Little Mushroom

I was eating dinner on the deck last weekend (and if you don't know this, our shaded deck overlooks our wooded backyard, and we see a lot of nature from there) and saw a small piece of bark on the table. We had enjoyed some recent rain, and the piece of bark was green with lichen. I was going to drop it off into the yard, but then I saw the tiniest mushroom I have even seen poking slightly above the lichen. I knew I had to photograph it. Later that evening, I set up my macro gear and finally figured out the best way to photograph the scene. Setting up my Nikon D40 with a Noveflex bellows and focus rail, I put a regular Nikkor 50mm f2 lens on the bellows. A twin macro flash (can only be used manually) would give me plenty of light. I realized that I had to photograph the mushroom from the side, so I elevated it on a stand and then added a piece of light blue paper for the background. I shot at f/16 which barely gave me enough depth of field at full bellows extension.

This is the setup:

and this is a close-up of the bark flap - the mushroom was about 3mm tall!


Shooting small bits of nature like this in the "studio" is pretty rewarding, as I can control the lighting and position (including mine!) so much better.