Showing posts with label lichen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lichen. Show all posts

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Paxton Stalk Balls and Scarlet Elf Cups

Winter Stalk Balls, Tulostoma brumale, are most commonly found on the coast in sand dunes etc but there is a good population at Paxton Pits on the gravel areas. Along with Pixie Cup lichens and Scarlet Elf Cup fungi they make wonderful macro subjects. As previous post, pairs of images - Raws processed with DxO Pure3Raw and  stacked in Zerene stacker in the computer next to in-camera stacks.

Friday, February 23, 2024

Focus-stacked Mosses, Lichens and Flies

We have traded in our Olympus OM-D EM-1 mark ii for another 2nd hand EM-1 mark iii as it has a few very useful features including dedicated exposure compensation and the ability to do an in-camera stack of 15 rather than 9 images. Here a few in-camera stacks of mosses and lichens in our churchyard and a couple of flies. The last image is stacked in the computer with Zerene stacker from the 15 RAW images processed with DxO PureRaw3; this gives a lot more detail than the in-camera jpeg and is obviously the best method for a quality images but the in-camera stacks are excellent for a quick image


Monday, January 8, 2024

Under a Garden Log

As part of my project to record all the species in the garden, in winter I spend time photographing the fungi, mosses etc. Unfortunately a lot of them are very small stretching my macro capabilities. The first two are a couple of different crusts - very colorful with intricate scuplturing. I then located two very tiny slime mould fruiting bodies and a 3mm translucent white Spider/Harvestman plus other crusts and lichens. All will take some time (if ever to put a name to!!)

Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Lichens

As it was a very wet day yesterday, I decided to try some macrophotography on the lichens that I had collected from Toft Wood. These were on a black tile with black background lit by LED light. Probably better if the lichen are dry as the water has picked up a lot of reflections or lit from the side as in the first specimen  - work in progress for rainy days!!


Wednesday, December 27, 2023

Lichens Toft Wood

I 'upgraded' my android phone recently  (courtesy of eBay) as my previous one only had 32GB memory which was proving difficult to run the ID apps that are so useful for naturalists these days. Although still a 2019 model, this one has more memory and a much better camera so tried it out on some lichens in our local wood - the first four images including the first image which is two related species Lecidella elaeochroma and Lecanora chlarotera that are common on the ash tree trunks. Certainly the close up mode will be very useful for small specimens such as the minute Collembolids in a piece of rotten wood. The last four images are from the Lumix full-spectrum camera. The Hazel catkins are beginning to flower while the wood itself still looks very autumnal. 
ps. those who know Phil will be glad to hear he now has my old phone and so is officially 'Smart' .

Saturday, November 4, 2023

Lichens at RPSB Sandy

As often happens when I am out with my camera, I got fixated on the variety of lichens growing on the sandy soils in the reserve. Not great quality images as they are all very small and these in-camera stacks don't give enough depth of field in most cases as it is restricted to 8 shots. I will return and try again taking 20+ stacks to process in the computer. There were lots of ladybirds and very very small spiders (Mangora acalypha)

Ann Miles Photography - My Favourite Images of the Past10 years or so