I went with a friend to bolt a short 10-12m mineshaft some weeks ago. My dad had just given me a camera to use underground, and this was the first time I tested it.

Camera: Pentax P30.

Lens: Vivitar 28mm f2.

Flash: Exakta with guide nr. ca 20.

Film: Fuji Superia 400 ASA.

Editing: Auto levels, contrast and color.

Somebody will probably comment that the rebelay is a single bolt and that it's bad as the total pitch length is only about 10-12m. I put an extra bolt in on the way up again to make it safer for next time.


























Francis

A mine, cool 

Now you need to figure out if your camera does long exposure, or bulb setting, if not set it to a single flash (disable red eye) and you will need slave flashes, with magic eye or using fireferret or what ever its called.

When taking long exposure use a tripod, even a tiny one, never think you can hold the camera for x seconds really steady, you cant.

The camera has got a bulb setting and 1s exposure as max preset. My dad also gave me a firefly that is hotwired to a flash. I tried the firefly in a cave some weeks ago (just using the infrared flash to trigger it), but when I got the pictures back from developing nearly all of them were under exposed

I am borrowing a flash from a friend to test. It's a Metz Mecablitz 45 CL-1 guide nr 45. If thats good I might buy the flash, and another firefly to use with it.

I am going to buy a tripod when I find a cheap one

Francis

I forgot to post a pic of the gear in my last post and I can't modify my post.

Francis

I used to use a P30, but unfortunately, in the humid, cold UK caves, it was far too "electronic", and on several occasions let me down. To its credit however, after a few hours on a radiator, it always came back to life.

As it was too unreliable underground, I went out and found the most manual camera I could -  I eventually settled on an OM-10. You will generally find that the older manual cameras are much more likely to have bulb ('B') settings, and for tripod work, a cable release thread. The only electronics they are likely to have are for the hot-shoe.

Try looking for old Prakticas or something similar - cheap as chips, nothing to go wrong, and if you do drop and smash it, no great financial loss !! :greed:

Francis, it looks good to my untrained eye!

A wise old bloke (well, Torbs) once told me "a good picture is made by the eye, the camera just captures it" so my best advice is to take loads of pictures and gradually you will instinctively get to know when you've got the makings of a good shot.
Could someone tell me when I get to that stage???

Burt said:

Francis, it looks good to my untrained eye!

A wise old bloke (well, Torbs) once told me "a good picture is made by the eye, the camera just captures it" so my best advice is to take loads of pictures and gradually you will instinctively get to know when you've got the makings of a good shot.
Could someone tell me when I get to that stage???

Click to expand...

Very similar to my approach, having the artistic sensibility of a slug, I work on the infinite no. of monkeys/typewriters principle & just keep snapping away in the hope I'll eventually produce a decent photo!