For the past several days, I’ve been seeing toadstools popping up everywhere in my yard. I particularly liked this group of toadstools and knew I wanted to get a ground level closeup. But, at 9AM, still in my bathrobe (Saturday’s my day off from the gym) how could I best capture the scene I was after? First, I put to use a tool from my beach panning arsenal—the panning plate on the Frisbee. That held the camera steady while I placed it on the ground. I used the D500 with its flip out screen so I didn’t have to get down on the ground with the camera to look through the viewfinder. I might do that on a sandy beach when I’m dressed properly but not on the wet lawn in my bathrobe and flip flops. I decided that the macro lens would not really get the effect I sought, so I used the 300mm lens and a remote to trigger the camera. I wanted a grungy look with a soft background but I also wanted to see the details of the toadstools so I took some of the shots wide open at f/4 and some at f/14. I merged the two shots in Photoshop so I could get all of them in focus but retain the shallow depth of field and then used a Luminar 2018 tonal contrast enhancer preset to get this final image.
You should call these Regal Toadstools, they certainly got the royal treatment. Toadstools have never looked so good.
Love how you got this effect- super awesome!