Re: Shooting upside down? Use an "L" bracket.
EarthMurmurs wrote:
You are unnecessarily making this complicated for yourself. Right now, today, at this moment, you could be photographing fungi at ground level with the gear you already own. Using the camera upside down is not as convenient, but it's hardly a rare and unachievable skill. By all means the earlier suggestion of an L-Bracket is a great one, but until you buy one, plus the necessary head, plus a tripod to accommodate, why not start your fungi hunting with the inverted column tripod ? You may find that crawling around in the dark, dirty forest floors is not so appealing after a few outings, and may not have to spend any money on gear you may not use in the long term.
Are you planning to shoot for focus stacking ? That's one ONLY reason I use an inverted tripod. If I were taking single shots, the previous suggestion of a small 'sand' bag is enough to stabilise the camera at ground level for a single shot, and far less cumbersome to carry on long hikes through the forest.
I'm a firm believer in using what we already own. And, you already own everything you need right now.
I re-iterate my post above that @earthmurmers was referring to. Don't over complicate it. Especially as mushroom season for us is quite short and not a year-round pursuit. A small bag or cushion to put the camera on at ground level works fine. I even saw a youtube video of a respected macro photographer filling a childrens pencil case with bird seed and using that. I can auto focus stack just fine from this. I will caveat that by saying a manual focus stack would be better with the tripod.
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