As part of the spring break I took the family spelunking. It was a full day of wandering the Carlsbad Caverns. It has been approximately 40 years (Ee gads!) since I was last there. Memories of years ago came back as I wandered the cave and set-up my tripod in trail-edge locations and took it all in.
Here is an image from a "small" chamber I wanted to offer up for everyone's enjoyment. (For scale, note the hand rails along the right hand side.) The colors are (probably) from the different types of lights that are used to illuminate the cave and not the natural colors. From what I could see in the dark it was basically a B&W cave.
Enjoy.
Posted by Todd Caudle on April 4, 2010 at 10:44 PM
From what I could see in the dark it was basically a B&W cave.
Well Todd, it wasn't totally dark, right? The camera can still see. And the kids did just fine. But having older eyes (you wouldn't know about that would you?) it was a bit dark to me. So being in a relatively dark cave my eyes were seeing things monochromatically.
Beautiful, magical place, Steve. I like your comp, but I find the hot spot in the bottom center to be really distracting. Any chance of burning that down? I love cave images, so show some more!
Posted by Brian Jackson on April 5, 2010 at 11:07 AM
This is WAY cool! Great details. Out of curiousity, what are your tech specs? I shot some photos in a MO cave in Oct. but was forced to handhold (no tripods allowed). I would agree with Paul's suggestion to burn down the bright spot (or just crop to eliminate it). I can't wait to see more images of this cave. Now I REALLY want to go there sometime!
Posted by Bill Pelzmann on April 5, 2010 at 12:47 PM
Our kids always enjoyed a trip to Carlsbad. They also loved the bat flights in the summer.
I hope you had the time to walk in, rather than take the elevator.
Very nice composition. The hot spots from the lights are tough to work around. An opportunity for blending multiple exposures?
Neat, Steven! The top portion is awesome--very detailed. I know what you mean about the colors--my mkii pikced up all sorts of colors that i didnt see in the cave. I liked the bottomless pit the best--just huge.
Thanks for the comments everyone. Glad to see it is being enjoyed.
Paul - Good comment. I should talk a little more time and clean this one up a bit more.
Angela - most of my shots that I took down there are XTi, 17mm, 20 to 30 s, F8, ISO 200 using tripod, MF, MLU, release. The "giants" you can begin to see at the end of the tunnel are well lit (about 5 to 10s exposure if I recall correctly). This particular image is a stitch of two vertical 30 s exposures cropped to 11x11. Found a lot of things needed more than one frame to capture all that is happening. But don't forget to take a telephoto. The caverns are huge and you will find yourself wanting at least 200mm at times.
Bill - Of course. Took about 2.5 h to walk the natural cave entrance. And you would probably agree that the pace was fast given all of the photography that is possible. No bats this time as the bug season is just getting started down there. Lots of people though as it was spring break season.
Stan - would agree that that section was huge. Hard to believe that it was over 400' from pit floor to dome ceiling. My sense of scale started to get skewed after viewing so many things from a distance.
Morris - add it to your "photog bucket list". It is well out of the main path, but well worth the experience. Your twilight/night photography experience will come in handy.
Superb Steve! That's a really tough place to shoot, and you nailed the exposure and DOF in spite of the low light.
Wanna have some fun though? Screen crop the lower third off the frame, just enough to eliminate all the bright foreground, basically turning it into a horizontal shot. The results just explode off the screen at you!
Hank - Much appreciate you taking time from your travels and stopping by. Your input at the sands was most helpful in my getting some of my captures at the cavern. I tinkered a bit with your above suggestion. The popcorn highlights are a bit overdone in places up front and the crop would be a good way to resolve that issue. Will probably implement that one in the final version. Thanks.
Discussion
15 repliesAs part of the spring break I took the family spelunking. It was a full day of wandering the Carlsbad Caverns. It has been approximately 40 years (Ee gads!) since I was last there. Memories of years ago came back as I wandered the cave and set-up my tripod in trail-edge locations and took it all in.
Here is an image from a "small" chamber I wanted to offer up for everyone's enjoyment. (For scale, note the hand rails along the right hand side.) The colors are (probably) from the different types of lights that are used to illuminate the cave and not the natural colors. From what I could see in the dark it was basically a B&W cave.
Enjoy.
In the dark, wouldn't it just be a B cave?
And wouldn't it be a B hive instead of a B cave?
I hope you had the time to walk in, rather than take the elevator.
Very nice composition. The hot spots from the lights are tough to work around. An opportunity for blending multiple exposures?
Paul - Good comment. I should talk a little more time and clean this one up a bit more.
Angela - most of my shots that I took down there are XTi, 17mm, 20 to 30 s, F8, ISO 200 using tripod, MF, MLU, release. The "giants" you can begin to see at the end of the tunnel are well lit (about 5 to 10s exposure if I recall correctly). This particular image is a stitch of two vertical 30 s exposures cropped to 11x11. Found a lot of things needed more than one frame to capture all that is happening. But don't forget to take a telephoto. The caverns are huge and you will find yourself wanting at least 200mm at times.
Bill - Of course. Took about 2.5 h to walk the natural cave entrance. And you would probably agree that the pace was fast given all of the photography that is possible. No bats this time as the bug season is just getting started down there. Lots of people though as it was spring break season.
Stan - would agree that that section was huge. Hard to believe that it was over 400' from pit floor to dome ceiling. My sense of scale started to get skewed after viewing so many things from a distance.
Morris - add it to your "photog bucket list". It is well out of the main path, but well worth the experience. Your twilight/night photography experience will come in handy.
Wanna have some fun though? Screen crop the lower third off the frame, just enough to eliminate all the bright foreground, basically turning it into a horizontal shot. The results just explode off the screen at you!
Thanks Jeremy.
Hank - Much appreciate you taking time from your travels and stopping by. Your input at the sands was most helpful in my getting some of my captures at the cavern. I tinkered a bit with your above suggestion. The popcorn highlights are a bit overdone in places up front and the crop would be a good way to resolve that issue. Will probably implement that one in the final version. Thanks.