Golden bracken

I wasn't feeling that great when I woke up this morning, still coughing, I still cannot taste or smell my food so I don't feel like eating and I had a blinding headache - I think the long day yesterday and the long drive in the dark is the cause of my headache. Anyway, I dragged myself up and after breakfast Xena and I had a damp walk in the woods, where I photographed this golden bracken - no golden leaves on the trees yet though. The fresh air does help to clear my head but I don't feel very energetic at the moment.

It's been a busy morning as I had to pack and get ready for my imminent departure to the airport. Gavn is at work so I will meet him at the airport. 

Tommy is all organised to look after Xena this weekend. He is having such a struggle finding accommodation in Munich, it is one of the most expensive cities in Germany for accommodation and there seems to be a shortage of accommodation too, and as soon as he finds a suitable listing it is snapped up within a couple of hours. He will spend the weekend trying to find accommodation and may have to go to Munich next week to see some properties.

Just to explain why I took so many images yesterday of one fungi to focus stack. You need to have the background soft and out of focus or else it just looks rubbish with detail in the background, so you set the aperture as wide open as possible - f2.8 or thereabouts so that the background is thrown out of focus. On a macro lens this then necessitates taking many, many images to get all the areas covered that you want to be in focus. I have added an extra of one I took yesterday - although I shot 100 frames, I only selected those where the fungi were in focus as I was not bothered about the area around the fungi being sharp, so I probably used about 35 images to stack. I used Helicon Pro it does a great job!

Right, I must get ready to depart as the taxi is about to arrive...