Well I wasn't going to take my camera as I could not be bothered to carry anything. In the end I put it in my undersuit pocket. A nice trip with Nicola Richens and friends. I think both of us trying to catch each other out with embarrassing photos.

I think I won with this one of Nikky on the pitch.



Well here is her shot of me showing how easy it is. ( Well I have had several goes at doing it one handed ).



The cave was in one of it's dryer phases so very little back scatter on I Auto.



The TG Camera ramps up the ISO on these so you get a softer effect with a little colour cast. You can muck about with Photoshop and fiddle the colour saturation but I liked it as it was.

Ladder exchange on the platform. Those yellow suits are good for photos. A bit hot in Reservoir Hole though as we have just found that there is little temperature change in TFD over a year.



A big ask just with helmet lamps on I Auto. Works sometimes though. Missing the man in the yellow suit.





Ahh. There he is ---



I rarely miss this one out.



The Milky Mountains in I Auto softer light.



Getting the phreatic pendants is never easy. Another on I Auto with a second person to the right cropped out to get a bit of balance though using his lamp.



Mending the tape hanger at the water point.



Thirsty work.



The 30,000 year old cryogenic stal. Passable macro with the TG but best to crop the image outside edges as the focus fades off.



All taken on the battered TG 2 which goes on every digging trip. ( Currently 85 trips in Vurley ). It has taken many thousands of ( mostly discarded )  images now and still works fine. I still use the TG 4 for set up stuff but this was a point and shoot trip. ( which proves it can be easily done ).

Can I see Mr. Taylor in one shot?

The Old Ruminator said:

The cave was in one of it's dryer phases so very little back scatter on I Auto.

Click to expand...

How far is your flash from the camera to get such beautifully clear shots?

It is a built in flash hence the flat lighting.

Peter is partially right though in I Auto the flash may not fire and lighting is ambient. ( ie helmet lights only ).

The big chamber shot with the two pillars was resolved by the camera as follows.

One eighth second exposure with an ISO rating of 1250. No flash fired.

That is obviously stretching both shutter speed and ISO to the limit with hand held. You must hold the camera very still in a rush job. Because the flash did not fire back scatter is eliminated. Clearly hit and miss photography but all of these took only a few seconds a time with little in the way of subject posing. I would prefer to use the TG 4 with Live Composite Mode on a tripod but the whole essence of this session was that it was not my trip. I was only there as a Reservoir Hole Conservation Warden. It's clearly unfair to take up the time of others who are there doing their own thing.

Nikky uses the same camera and quick techniques as me. This one low res of me in Chain Chamber cribbed from FB.  Helmet light illumination and a dark background which gives an illusion of sharpness. All perfectly OK for on the move quick photography. ( Why not try it !  )

Gone a long way from my old Praktica with a 35mm f1.8 Pentax lens firing a Vivita 283 flash (usually held a foot or so from the camera to avoid reflection). Most often an Ansco 400 asa (fastest I could get) colour slide film.

Digital is everything now and cameras are getting more intuitive. As I have said before half the effort is now post session editing. I run most shots through Photoshop but the final edit is as much to do with personal choice rather than perfecting the shot. I like most images fairly light. Others mean and moody. It's a shame more cavers do not see the value of the "easy " shot. At the end of the day in all cases the composition is the most important factor.

Here are a couple from the digging effort a few days after the above trip.



The above was not posed but I could see the composition would be unusual with an overhead shot.

TG2. Programme Auto giving a fairly standard arrangement of  30th sec. 400 ISO , Flash fill in.

This one on I Auto with the camera resolving the issue at f2, 15th sec, ISO 800. No flash.  I dont mind full aperture soft focus images. Others might prefer a smaller aperture.