My girlfriend caving...

[RobEavis]

Here's a kinda different one now (well for me anyway, it's still underground i'm afraid!). Took me quite a while at this spot to capture this short crawling passage, but i think i'm pretty happy with the result. I've cropped it to try to show off the horizontal movement of the picture a bit more, and i've altered the level quite a bit to make it more contrasty. Not sure whether to lighten the roof more or to keep it quite monotone? The few caving photography friends that i know aren't that bothered about it really, don't think they like the framing, but i like it. Would love to hear what you think. Especially given the responses for my last upload! :thumbs:

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/gallery/data/500/medium/IMG_1072bgsm.jpg

[tank]

Good idea but not very well excuted. Maybe taken without flash would have been better. I find the rocks to the right quite distracting.


I also have that helmet and Headlamp:woot:

[dod]

Good idea but not very well excuted. Maybe taken without flash would have been better. I find the rocks to the right quite distracting.

I'm not sure how he could have got that shot without flash, surely his girlfriend would have ended up as a silouhette?

[Gilly B]

I quite like it. The way you have allowed her some room to crawl into does it for me. I understand what Tank means about the Rocks, but it is still an image with a story - also like the backlight.

[tank]

I'm not sure how he could have got that shot without flash, surely his girlfriend would have ended up as a silouhette?

true, but maby it would be more dramatic.

Also could have painted her in with a torch.

[dod]

true, but maby it would be more dramatic.
We'll never know now :p

Also could have painted her in with a torch.
Good point :)

[Yv]

I have to disagree, I like the composition, works well, my only gripe if I had to have one, it would be that her face is a little soft, but I can imagine getting a proper focus in those conditions is really tough, so a great effort for me. :clap:

[RobEavis]

I have to say that she does have a rather soft face, although it is perfectly in focus on the full sized image :D

Yer, maybe a torch would have worked, but it would have required a tripod (which i didn't have) and i generally find LED light a bit green once photographed. Although it does make nice soft lighting, being able to move the source about a bit, so i may have a bit mre of a play one time when i have my tripod with me. Or maybe i'lll get a soft box for my foreground flash.

Cheers for the comments so far, very helpful...

[TomB]

I love your caving shots... but I do find the amount of light form the flash distracting in this one. I think it might look better maybe cross-processed, or with the saturation reduced to make it grittier or something.

[moomike]

I have to disagree, I like the composition, works well...

:agree: Think a selective levels adjustment would work really well for this image as I'm not sure there is enough dark "caveyness" (:thinking: ) about it - IMO I think it needs darkening to a bit of a deeper level for the background to make your gf stand out. Great effort under what seem like incredibly difficult conditions though :clap:

[CT]

I think those foreground rocks on the right being so lit up by the flash are really losing the dark cave atmosphere? Sortable with selective masks I'd think.

[Kev M]

Time to get the flash off your camera with some ebay radio triggers.

[Hacker]

As others have said the foreground rocks don't look right. I've had a quick play....

Colour:

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f273/HackerUK/IMG_1072bgsm.jpg

Mono:

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f273/HackerUK/IMG_1072bgsm-mono.jpg

Selective colouring:

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f273/HackerUK/IMG_1072bgsmselcol.jpg

[moomike]

Hackers 1st edit works best for me, was a really nice image to start with & the edit really finished it off IMHO :thumbs:

[RobEavis]

Nice work Hacker! Yer darkening down the foreground rocks does emphasis Katie more while keeping the picture balanced.:thumbs: :thumbs:
Not sure about the mono version, she just looks too grey for my liking, almost as if she's wearing some weird chemical suit! But maybe that's only because of me having caver's eyes!
The selective colour one is pretty cool. Ive played around with a few like this, just keeping the cave's colour and b&w the rest of the cave. I like!
Thanks for your time, i am finding this site extremely rewarding :thumbs:

[Million]

Yep, the first edit was needed just to bring down the flash-heavy areas - good work

[RobEavis]

Time to get the flash off your camera with some ebay radio triggers.
I use FireFly's http://www.fireflyelectronics.co.uk/ They are specifically designed for the cave environment and so really sensitive. In almost all my shots i have two running at once.
Underground I use a Canon G7 in a canon waterproof housing which doesn't allow any extra room for any hotshoe attachment (such as a radio transmitter) so i have to use the onboard flash to trigger the external flashes. However, i turn it right down so that you cannot see any light, plus the housing has a flash diffuser which helps even more. All the light you can see in this shot is from 2 external flashes. The foreground one is about 40cm to the lenses left.
Sometimes, when i know i'm going to be very close to the subject, i place a 35mm film negative across the flash. This only lets IR through which still triggering the slaves but is not visable.

[Sherlock_Holmes]

I actually like it as it is:thumbs:

[johnb]

How ya doin??

[sorry to lower the tone!]