Paddenstoelen tijd – naturetc.

Autumn is generally considered the time of year to find mushrooms. And yes, during that period they are almost impossible to miss. But mushrooms can also be found in nature in the other months of the year. Maybe not as abundant and in some cases very small or hidden but they are definitely there. When I was sorting out the photos for this blog post, I noticed that I had taken about two-thirds of the photos used in October/November. The rest just in spring/early summer.

To be quite honest, I am not very good at identifying mushrooms. Even my 'sidekick', the ObsIdentify app, was not always sure of the name found. So you won't find any names in this blog post. I personally have no problem with that, because even without giving a name or label to anything, I can enjoy what I see and experience. On the other hand, I am always curious about how something originates and lives.

Last November, at the invitation of good friends, I joined a mushroom walk in the Kralingse bos in Rotterdam. A great opportunity to learn more about mushrooms. The walk was guided by IVN volunteers and they knew a lot about mushrooms. With the mirrors they brought along, we were also able to look under the cap where you can also see a lot of difference. Very interesting and, not unimportantly, very sociable.

In brief, what the guides told:
There is a whole network of fungi under the soil or bark of trees. The above-ground offshoots of this network of fungi are the mushrooms we see. So a mushroom is the fruiting body of a fungus. The underground fungi are very useful. They clean up much of the organic matter, such as dead leaves and dead worms. They then convert this into food for plants and other organisms. There are also fungi that cooperate with trees. The fungus transports minerals and water from the soil to the tree roots, in exchange for carbon and energy.
You can also find extensive information in Dutch on the IVN website (opens in a new tab): https://www.ivn.nl/leren-over-de-natuur/alles-weten-over-paddenstoelen/

The advantage of mushrooms is that they stay nice and still. Most of them anyway because the very small mushrooms have such a thin stalk that a small gust of wind already causes movement. But in general, that means I have a bit more time for focusing and different settings than with insect photography.
What you see sharp in the photo depends on several things but is basically always a combination of aperture (lens opening), focal length and shutter speed. For still objects, shutter speed is not really an issue. In principle, a larger aperture (small aperture number) results in a smaller depth of field than a smaller aperture. This effect will be greater when your subject is closer and when you have a lens with a longer focal length (more towards telephoto lenses).

When taking a close-up photo of a mushroom, in many cases you want a nice blurred background so that the mushroom really stands out. So you achieve this with the aforementioned combination of aperture and focal length. However, because you are so close to the subject, the desired combination gives such a small sharp area (sometimes only a millimetre) that most of the mushroom is also out of focus. One technique to still get this right is to take several shots, each with a different sharp part. Later you can assemble these sharp parts on the computer into one sharp image (focus stacking). My camera has a function called focus bracketing. With this setting, the camera takes up to 8 shots in a short time and shifts the focus point with each shot. The camera then edits this to 1 image. The advantage is that you can immediately check the result and make any necessary adjustments. The adjustment often involves using a different primary focus point or a slightly smaller lens opening (larger aperture) so that the total sharpness range is slightly larger, while the background remains nicely blurred. Focus bracketing is a tool but fortunately there remains more than enough room for (technical) challenge and creativity.

All photos I took in various places in the Netherlands including the Biesbosch, Mastbos, Veluwe and Sallandse heuvelrug. There are of course many more species than I can show (or have seen myself) but it gives a good indication of the variation that exists. The smallest (the white one on the tree trunk) was only a few millimetres in size. While the largest (the brown one among the heather) was over 30 centimetres. So whether you like small and fragile, colourful, or large it is all there and has its own beauty (just like humans). Above all, look for all the beauty and positivity, not only in nature but also in the people around you. That makes the world a little more beautiful.

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