The Old Ruminator said:

It is great to combine hobbys particularly photography and caving.  Eventually you find your own style and if you look at an image carefully you will be able to discern the photographer purely on that. Personally I don't like to follow the crowd. There are really no rules re kit, style or anything else. We had an acronym in dive training KISS. ( They love those on here ). Keep it simple stupid. You can go that way or branch into the more complex realms.  Always remember , though , that you will need support and loads of " faffing " soon reduces your available subject pool. Having a basic idea regards composition is important and your photos illustrate that is good. As for kit it's hard to be definitive. The market is constantly changing with new technology and concepts. The shift from hardware to software seems to be gaining momentum. Ultimately I feel that an image has no value at all unless it is shared. Hoping to see a lot more from you in the future.

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pwhole said:

Going on the examples above, I can't think of any tips at all - you seem to be doing fine

My only recommendation if you're photographing cavers - if you want to do it regularly - is to try and work with the same people every time, if you can, assuming they can stand it. Bribery may have to be involved. Though obviously the ego-stroking resulting from being in lots of nice photos, especially if they'll be published, may be incentive enough. But - once you get 'familiar' with each other in that context, it's amazing how much easier it gets, as everyone 'knows' what to do in any given scenario, and shoots take less time and with less shouting of instructions. One caver friend of mine has probably been in about 50% of my decent shots, and we can just get on with it now, as it's so familiar. It's so much easier when you don't have to think too much - especially when you're doing vertical stuff.

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chunky said:

All great advice from TOR

Although I have primarily used strobes and bulbs with my camera and hand held for speed so as to shoot during caving trips, I am myself beginning to experiment more with light painting and fixed lighting in combination with the above.

My tips would be use as sturdy a tripod as you can carry. Be creative, use helmet lights, LED's, light paint with torches. Depending on your results you may wish to colour balance the light sources using colour gels. I can't really recommend kit for fixed lighting as my LED's are changeable heads on the godson ad200 stones and are pretty expensive, but there seem to be a host of cheaper yet and I haven't yet tested, but for torches the BLF Q8 is awesome and fairly cheap, they will also take diffusers for better light spread. Caverkeith has just tested some fenix kit which is also superb but a bit more expensive.

Peli cases and Daren drums are both sturdy when it comes to protecting gear and pretty user friendly to cave with. I have used body armour on my cameras for years and they work extremely well, the only down side is that grit and mud can get under the skin and cause cosmetic wear to the camera finish, not too important but it does affect the resale value if you use an expensive camera set up.

I go wide as I can with lenses, on my FX body I use a 16-35mm for UK caving because I can protect the lens using clear filters and a 14-24 in big stuff where I can be sure that the lens won't get scratched.

There are some top photographers up your way that I'm sure would be happy to go and play if you put out a shout with some dates in mind, or contact local clubs.

I'd also be happy to go underground and have a play, especially with new techniques if you can ever pin me down to a date that I'm not booked. 

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ZombieCake said:

Re: LED lights
Manfrotto Lumimuse are good (especially the 8 LED one) are good for near-ish stuff (they wont light Mulu) not water resistant or proof, but nice spread of light.  LumeCubes are also good and are waterproof.  Can't be bothered by the gimmicky app personally, just use the manual switching.  Incidentally the Manfrotto Lumimuse filters gaffa-tape very nicely onto LumeCubes without paying silly money for the LumeCube holder.

https://www.manfrotto.co.uk/collections/lighting/lumimuse-led-lights

https://www.lumecube.com

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lancscaver said:

ZombieCake said:

Re: LED lights
Manfrotto Lumimuse are good (especially the 8 LED one) are good for near-ish stuff (they wont light Mulu) not water resistant or proof, but nice spread of light.  LumeCubes are also good and are waterproof.  Can't be bothered by the gimmicky app personally, just use the manual switching.  Incidentally the Manfrotto Lumimuse filters gaffa-tape very nicely onto LumeCubes without paying silly money for the LumeCube holder.

https://www.manfrotto.co.uk/collections/lighting/lumimuse-led-lights

https://www.lumecube.com

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Thanks for the links, will look into them.
Just got new helmets and new 2 Fenix 950 lumen headlamps, be interesting to see them underground?
My caving days started with Oldhams, then Speleotechnics FX lights, then an Apex 17, then the lighter blue battery kidney pack lights....
Showing my age now? 
Started caving and SRT in 88/89 and bought all our first SRT set up in a shop in Crickhowell while doing caving in south wales, we were in a forest when a warden pulled up and said "get down from that tree immediately!" We said "he will when he figures out what he is doing?"
My mate was half way up a tree with Dave Elliot`s SRT book in hand learning to do a changeover! 
Did a load of courses with Nigel Atkins and Kev West after that in Dent and the dales to learn it properly plus rescue etc..
Still have the kidney pack light? I wonder if I could change the bulb to LED and use it for part of the lighting?
Thanks for the comments!
Andy

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