Photography tips anyone?

[BigDyl]

I've finally got my hands on a couple flashguns, triggers and recievers. I have taken many caving photos using my phone camera, with headtorches as my lighting source and have only used a proper DSLR underground a couple times. So i was wondering if anyone has a few pointers/tips for taking photos underground with this kind of setup, would be very much appreciated!

 

[pwhole]

Sounds daft, but always take a towel or cloth for your hands (take your gloves off!), if you don't want to end up with 'brown ring syndrome' around every button, as often they're soft-press buttons and could stop working. Also any rotating dials are equally risky for trundling mud inside the body. Be especially careful with zoom lenses, and don't let dirt or grit get inside the barrel, ever, or you may regret it later. I write from experience! Weather-sealed lenses and bodies will help, but I guess you're using what you've got.

Cheapish wide-angle prime lenses are best if you can buy more, as you should be able to stop down to f8 with flashguns, so they'll be sharp enough, but also you won't be weeping if it gets trashed. 28mm 2.8s can often be picked up for thirty quid or so secondhand. Also if you can afford it, Peli cases or similar will save your kit from destruction - I write from multiple experiences again, including it bouncing down a steep 150m slope and then slamming into a drystone wall, with my SLR, zoom lens and flash trigger inside. And they float

I haven't told you anything about technique, as I haven't got a clue what you're planning, but if your kit doesn't work, you won't be taking anything. Just try to avoid backlit silhouette photos in shafts, avens and phreatic tubes, as the world has more than enough of those already

 

[Steve Clark]

The correct size peli case is improtant too. I started with a case for the camera & triggers and a smaller case for the strobes. Total pain, difficult to carry two and peli cases don’t fit in caving bags very well. I’m currently using a single 1400 and that’s fine for a camera, bits and three strobes. I just use top and bottom foam and a bit around the camera.

Tape up the flashgun battery compartments with electrical tape. If you knock the door on a pitch they all fall out. Also, putting some protection around the mode button on the strobes can stop your helpers accidentally moving it out of Rx mode. That’s annoying to describe how to fix from a distance if they’re not photographers themselves.

Reward your helpers by giving them prints and letting them use your images. Be slick and prepared. One or two setups per trip, quality over quantity.

 

[Chocolate fireguard]

Just try to avoid backlit silhouette photos in shafts, avens and phreatic tubes, as the world has more than enough of those already

How dare you! You just badmouthed most of my pics.😩

 

[vintagelamp]

Depth sometimes works, but you need variety. Here I used 3 identical Vivitar 283 flash units placed at intervals along this 1700-ish culvert in Greenwich. 1 flash on-camera, the others had slave eyes on their sync cords. Experiment with placing the single figure at each lighting position - which actually becomes a portrait if in the foreground. Tell the person to look at the ceiling and appear slightly worried. My colleague was wearing his German-mines issue uniform: all white and impossible to light.

 

[cap n chris]

Laser(s), water spray/mist, and silhouettes?

 

[chunky]

With a 2 strobe set up you can do quite a lot with a DSLR. I tend to back light on full power of the strobe and set the iso to as low as I can get away with. I'll then set the aperture (This one is iso 125, aperture f10) then adjust the front lighting and position to suit. Here I had a flash down the passage to the right on the floor facing back toward the models back. Front flash hand held in my left hand high and slightly angled down towards the formations and models face.

A slightly different set up, this time one flash held directly above pointing down and one from the left side. Set up with the top flash determining the iso and aperture settings. (This one iso 64, aperture f22)

Sometimes I think a silhouette shot works fab. This one has two strobes behind the model held at waist height, each slightly angled left and right. (Settings iso 800, aperture f5.6)

All my strobe shots tend to be at 1/125 shutter speed, unless I'm using mixed light sources. This gives the advantage that shots can be hand held with no tripod needed. I use back button single point focus and only change focus point if I, or the subject change distance. Once the lighting is set up I tend to take the shot from a few angles to see what works best. If you have a decent MP range then overshoot wider than you want the shot, this will mean you can crop in and get rid of soft/out of focus edges if you have them. As the guys have said, protecting the gear using peli cases or Daren drums is key. Cloths to dry hands of flash gun holders, or to wipe strobes that have been positioned on muddy rocks (Remembering not to put damp cloths in with the camera after use), disposable tissues to wipe lenses etc.

Practice in dry caves to hone your shots so you don't feel rushed by people getting cold and wet. Be appreciative of people who assist you and give them positive feedback whilst taking the photos.

If you are that way inclined shoot in raw and post process. You'll always get better results editing your own photos than allowing the camera to point and shoot, but you can only polish a turd so much, so get the shot as good as you can in camera!

Hope that helps.

 

[Fulk]

Here are three basic rules of cave photography:

1) Always get your flash / light source off the camera.

2) Always get your flash / light source off the camera.

3) Always get your flash / light source off the camera.

These rules used to apply in the 'old days' when people used film / digital cameras and flash, nevertheless the same principal applies, although nowadays with so many people using cell-phone cameras, or more critically powerful modern lights, they more or less automatically obey the rules by using someone else’s light source.

The reason? – photographs taken pre cell-phones looked dull and boring if the flash was in/on the camera, and getting it off by having other people fire it / them was the only way to get decent shadows and lighting. But, as I just said, it’s a mater of much less importance now.

PS I like your shots, Chunky, especially the last 'boring / tedious / back-it one' !!!!! OK, so back-lit shots are a bit of a cliché . . . but why is a cliché a cliché? Because it works / because it's true.

 

[vintagelamp]

To offset any possible "cliché-ness" of backlighting, just change something. Here's backlighting, but there's quite a lot of fill (bouncing off the walls), and the whole shot is faux-vintage turn-of-the-century exploration... with period clothing and sepia toning. These people really did go caving dressed in tweed. Chalk mine near Ifield, Kent. XP2 6x9 on 120 in an old Agfa folding camera.

 

[pwhole]

Fantastic shot. I'll waive my previous restrictions for that one

 

[mrodoc]

If it hasn't been already said some caves soak up light whilst other can reflect it. Bounce flash ie aiming a flash at a light coloured wall can give some nice soft lighting.

 

[Pegasus]

I'll second the advice to appreciate your helpers. Spent many an hour sat helping various photographers - the one who used fellow cavers most was Carsten Peter, would never help him again. Chunky is the exact opposite - I'm so grateful for the many wonderful shots he's taken of me I pay him and Jess back with BBQ's - already planning some for 2025 😁

Happy helpers make for better photos - and if you take lovely shots of them, they may even feed you 😋