Cave Photography
A few words from Spike:
Some things came to my mind as I was driving back that I wish I had thought of while we
were in the cave. One thing is that a spring cave sucks in relatively cold air when the
temps are cold. The warm air cavers breath out hits the cold air and the moisture in the
breath condenses causing "fog" This was vary evident at the entrance but not so much
back further into the cave. A flash bounces off this steam causing the air close to the
flash to show up bright and cloudy while the steam farther from the strobe reflects less.
This results in pictures that come out looking foggy. Also, on cold days the cameras have
been outside and the lenses and the film are cold when they are brought into the cave.
When they are taken out of the bag the warmer saturated air next to the camera lens and
film condenses into water droplets on all the surfaces of the lenses and on the film surface
causing the lenses to fog up and the film to get wet degrading the picture. I went into a
green house on a cold day to take flower pictures and we were unable to keep the lenses
clear. The fog also forms on the film surface and the inner lenses, places where it is
impossible to wipe off. Film should thus be brought up to cave temperature before being
removed from the film cartridge. If it is cold outside the cave, the camera and the lenses
should be allowed to warm to cave temperature. They may not warm if they are still in
the carrying cases. I think that I saw some lens fogging and some problems with the flash
bouncing back and over exaggerating the fog. By the time you got to where the pictures
were taken deeper in the cave and temperatures had equalized the fog problems had for
the most part disappeared. Also shots taken where the strobe was fired just to the left or
right of the camera left as hard shadow on one side of the rocks and cavers. To cut down
this problem with on camera strobes, arrange the camera or strobe so that the strobe is
directly above the camera. This will put the shadow below and behind what the camera
can see. A camera mounted strobe shines on the part of the eye that is red when the eye
is dilated for dark. This results in red eye, however, most darkroom or photo modifying
software have the ability to erase red eye. I think I would have tried more shots where the
primary strobe was beyond the subject and looking obliquely back toward the camera.
This eliminates shadow, lights the rocks and the center of the picture and only shows the
caver as a size reference. It tends to make the picture a picture of the cave rather than a
picture of a caver. It also keeps the foreground and the surrounding nearer parts of the
cave darker which gives a more dramatic effect. As the holder is behind the light, his
image and shadow will not be a part of the picture. Also, if you drape a black cloth over
the lens while it is on time exposure, you can cover the lens between each popping of the
strobes, giving the strobe bearers time to move about. If your strobe has its own sensor,
some do, it will shut off when enough light hits what the sensor is pointing at to correctly
expose the film. To shoot multiple shots, turn the strobes auto function down by either
lowering the fstop or, if the strobe is so equipped use the fractions of power scale. For
each f stop you lower the strobe setting on the strobe, you will be able to and have to fire
the strobe twice as many times. For example, lowering the f stop 2 stops will enable you
the fire the strobe four times without overexposing the film. Foreground and areas close
to other camera can be deliberately underexposed so that the farther away subject will be
the brightest part of the picture. Also, you can walk down the walls at the side of the
picture and set off the strobe tangentially to walls while underexposing. This will give
the walls a much more dramatic, contoured look. However, too keep the strobe operator
out of the picture, he must remain outside of what the camera can see by either staying
wide, or by getting behind jutting rocks. If the flash is pointing toward the camera, the
operator will not have to worry about being in the picture as he will be behind the flash
and he will not be between the camera and what the flash is hitting. If you want to do
multiple exposure shots, it would be to your advantage to acquire a strobe light that has
its own sensor so that it does not need to be controlled by the camera. The better strobes
have scales for fraction so that you can decrease the powers without having to fool the
sensor by changing the f stop setting. Camera mounted strobe lights are alright for
documentation picture and cost so little that dropping them or getting them wet or dirty
won't be catastrophic. When you are going to go into a new cave, try to remember to
take pictures. Going into a new cave pictures cannot be taken later. Take a lot of
pictures, even of the same scene as you will find that some of them come out better than
others. Use low sensitivity film as the film will be less grainy and you can get more light
to expose it simply by using multiple strobes. Most cavers take horizontal pictures
simply because the camera is set up so that when it is held in the horizontal normal
position, the picture taken will be wider than it is tall. Many pictures have more striking
effect when the camera is held on its side and the picture is vertical (taller than it is wide).
Use a fairly wide angle lens. Looking through the 50 millimeter lens gives the same
image as the eye sees. Later, all you need to make a "telephoto" is to crop the wide
angle picture. Just blow the picture up larger and then cut the sides and top. Most
pictures can look better if they are cropped. To see what the picture looks like before you
do the actual cutting, place the photo on a table and place pieces of paper over the edges
then adjust the papers until the picture looks best. Try to crop out things that don't belong
in the picture such as a hand, bright rocks that the strobe picked up (you should try to
avoid bright subjects in the foreground. Most contest photographers have to crop the
original negative to some extent to get the final "best" picture. If you take a telephoto,
you can not "uncrop" and add things back into the picture. A thirty-five millimeter lens or
a zoom lens set at 35 is a good choice. If your back is against the wall and you can't get
farther away to get everything into the picture, the wide angle is the solution.
Flash bulbs: Avoid clear flash bulbs as they are set up for indoor film. Indoor film is
more sensitive to blue and puts the blue back into skin tones. Outdoor film with clear
bulbs will make faces "ruddy", better to use blue flash and outdoor film. ASA 400 high
sensitivity films are great for circus and clown pictures as they tend to exaggerate colors,
but these exaggerated colors are not flattering to the human face. Better to stick to the
less sensitive films that are in the ASA 100 range. When you show your pictures to those
that you took, they are not going to like the ruddiness of their faces that the hot films
produce. The color labs that develop the film can correct for color balance, but they have
no way of correcting too much color.