Board "Ground level Tripod" for mushrooms

Yawns · Post by **Yawns** » Tue Oct 22, 2019 6:19 pm

I saw this video the other day on YouTube and I found his board brilliant...
I had to try it and do a quick prototype a few weeks ago... just a board and screws.. and an "Arca" type shoe..

The screws allow for very precise frame adjusting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97hgW9O ... Y59PiEn07M

az2 by antonio caseiro, no Flickr

22 Photos - 2019-09-24 - C by antonio caseiro, on Flickr

MA240580 by antonio caseiro, on Flickr

az1 by antonio caseiro, no Flickr

Today I did another version... more comfortable to use with stuff I was having in the shed.. (just had to buy on eBay the "Tee nuts")

The "Knobs" are door stoppers .. makes the use more comfortable in the hand
The mint box is for the flash gels and snoot reducers...

This works very well for the mushrooms in the ground... and also in places where a tripod is awkward.. like round logs in the ground, the top of stone walls and such...
(watch the video ... it's more clear there)

IMG_20191022_175427 by antonio caseiro, no Flickr

1111111 by antonio caseiro, on Flickr

2222 by antonio caseiro, on Flickr

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I can't get that "forest" look in the pictures, because I have no forests here ... the few mushrooms I found so far were all at the lawns of the city park... wide open and with too much light...

For the mushroom pictures above I used a dark grey jacket I was wearing for background and later added a few "light" overlays .in the edition...

Lou Jost · Post by **Lou Jost** » Tue Oct 22, 2019 6:53 pm

That's some very expert and creative light editing.

grgh · Post by **grgh** » Wed Oct 23, 2019 2:48 am

Inovation and improvisation name of the game.
When they lead to beautiful shots such as these.

lovely and really like this kind of photography.

Yawns · Post by **Yawns** » Wed Oct 23, 2019 3:44 am

Lou Jost wrote:That's some very expert and creative light editing.

Tx.. how wish..

It's the Flash / "snooth" ... gotta take many at different flash intensities, distance, angle.. until we get a pleasant one

tas a ver by antonio caseiro, on Flickr

used my jacket as background but the natural look only with flash / snoot was ok too .. the flash/snoot works better in a cast day or near evening .. too much ambient light kills a bit the effect.

MA240404 by antonio caseiro, on Flickr

The "light" overlays are here.. 120 and free and a tutorial... sorry I can't embed the link in a word... I keep struggling with the syntax of this forum to do so...

https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/120-f ... ls_2017_12

Screenshot 2019-08-29 at 21.29.17 by antonio caseiro, on Flickr

Christmas will be around soon.. it's easy to do a collection in a single walk in downtown ... (got those from the web)..

Screenshot 2019-10-23 at 11.15.59 by antonio caseiro, on Flickr

when you change the blend of a layer to "screen" , black turns to transparent .. it's a just a question of dragging / stretching the layer until the size and position of the "balls" is pleasant and play with the layer transparency... then a bit of rubber to remove the bits we don't want... it's not wizard edition.. more a question of work with the eraser brush...

fairy by antonio caseiro, on Flickr

Yawns · Post by **Yawns** » Wed Oct 23, 2019 3:56 am

grgh wrote:Inovation and improvisation name of the game.
When they lead to beautiful shots such as these.

lovely and really like this kind of photography.

Yes.. some guys are really brilliant...
I recently spent like 300 euros on a ground level tripod (Sunwayfoto T1A20) and a low profile ball head, "half-ball" type (Sunwayfoto DYH-90Ri Rotating Leveling Base) and this 10 euros thing works so much better...
(of course the Sunway photo gear has other uses, it wasn't wasted money)..

António

Yawns · Post by **Yawns** » Wed Oct 23, 2019 4:08 am

last week I went to visit my sister (more than 200 miles form here) and she has a wood of oaks / chestnuts at her door step... loads of beautiful batches of mushroom , but I was having only the phone...

here it's sand and just small patches of pine trees .. can't find many

Untitled by antonio caseiro, on Flickr

chris_ma · Post by **chris_ma** » Wed Oct 23, 2019 4:10 am

great idea! and I also like the lighting examples.
it would also be easy to mount a rail on that.

one thing I would look for is some kind of quick release mechanism for the legs height adjustment, so that the rough adjustment could be done in a second and then fine adjustment with the screws. not exactly sure how to implement there must be something out there with those capabilities.

chris

Yawns · Post by **Yawns** » Wed Oct 23, 2019 6:17 am

chris_ma wrote:great idea! and I also like the lighting examples.
it would also be easy to mount a rail on that.

one thing I would look for is some kind of quick release mechanism for the legs height adjustment, so that the rough adjustment could be done in a second and then fine adjustment with the screws. not exactly sure how to implement there must be something out there with those capabilities.

chris

Chris ... The key here is to have the lens axis as close as possible to the ground .. anything you add raises the lens.... and you shoot at the mushrooms top / down ...
sometime I use just a bit of plastic to don't get the camera humid or dirty and a sock with rice under only the lens for adjustment ...

like here: it's not a mushroom but's the same process.. the fly was just at 4-5 cm from the ground level...

FLK_000132 by antonio caseiro, on Flickr

to get this angle the lens was almost touching the ground...

( I did not use the twin flash, it's natural light at f/3.5.. this is a bracketing of 150 shots.. I was having the flashes mounted only to be prepared for single shots and whatever I could find..

FLK_000133 by antonio caseiro, on Flickr

Yawns · Post by **Yawns** » Wed Oct 23, 2019 7:50 am

None of the shoes I have can be mounted on a board directly... because the knobs are very big ...
In the first version I mounted the shoe on a small piece of wood to raise the shoe and let the knob run free ...

But in the second I opened that hole to operate the knob.. only to have back the 5mm height of the wood piece..

Untitled2 by antonio caseiro, on Flickr

RobertOToole · Post by **RobertOToole** » Wed Oct 23, 2019 8:19 am

Informative post Yawns, appreciate all the nice example images!

For wildlife photography from-the-ground, the old method was a frisbee, flying disk, with a beanbag. The frisbee really helps slide the heavy camera in close without disturbing the subject. The beanbag killed most vibrations.

Later on the photo vendors saw the opportunity and had discs made and still sell them for $99+ a piece. At least these consumer versions included a 1/4-32 stud to mount a clamp or head if needed.

My white frisbee is still sitting in my office somewhere but I haven't used it in awhile.

Lately I hate to admit it, I just lay the camera on the ground. Its a popular technique over the last few years is to have the camera actually touch the ground so you get a ultra soft blurred foreground of snow, sand, grass, whatever but I think that technique is over and done now once it became the rage on IG (instagram).

You know there are vendors/companies out there that sell only professionally made ground pods! Just one product. A ground type pod. I'll keep my Frisbee.

Best,

Robert

RobertOToole · Post by **RobertOToole** » Wed Oct 23, 2019 8:23 am

Yawns wrote:None of the shoes I have can be mounted on a board directly... because the knobs are very big ...
In the first version I mounted the shoe on a small piece of wood to raise the shoe and let the knob run free ...

But in the second I opened that hole to operate the knob.. only to have back the 5mm height of the wood piece..

Untitled2 by antonio caseiro, on Flickr

Easy fix, just use a QR lever style clamp (quick-release).

This type of clamp works very well BTW.

Acratech's:

(the small knob is used to adjust the clamp width for various brands of plates since the dims are not standardized)

kaleun96 · Post by **kaleun96** » Thu Oct 24, 2019 3:47 am

Thank you for sharing, I really enjoyed that video and the idea is simple but effective!

Yawns · Post by **Yawns** » Thu Oct 24, 2019 4:31 am

kaleun96 wrote:Thank you for sharing, I really enjoyed that video and the idea is simple but effective!

yes it's brilliant...
I give him the credits for the idea..
I don't know if he has to give the credits to someone else ...

António

Yawns · Post by **Yawns** » Thu Nov 07, 2019 7:55 am

RobertOToole wrote:.... the old method was a frisbee, flying disk, with a beanbag. The frisbee really helps slide the heavy camera in close without disturbing the subject. The beanbag killed most vibrations.
....
My white frisbee is still sitting in my office somewhere but I haven't used it in awhile.

You know there are vendors/companies out there that sell only professionally made ground pods! Just one product. A ground type pod. I'll keep my Frisbee.

Best,

Robert

Thanks Robert ... I've never seen or heard of Frisbees or these purpose-designed systems ... but I've seen frying pans ...
I'm doing one right now too

António