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<h2 id="tophead">CUCC Expedition Handbook</h2>
<h1>Photography</h1>

<p>Seeing all these excellent (and otherwise) photos on the website may have
inspired you to say "How can I take photos like that?" or maybe "What a load of
crap, I bet I can do better than that". Either way, it is a sad fact that
CUCC's photography today is about as good as its surveying 10 years ago.
Writing "how to do it" guides and ranting at people seems to have caused a lot
of progress on the surveying front, so we clearly need such a guide for expo
photography.</p>

<p>However, as yet, no one has volunteered to write one, probably because
no-one is really qualified to do so... So this document is just an outline
of (a) what has been done up to now and (b) what needs doing in the future
without much (c) how to do it.</p>

<h3>What has been done up to now ?</h3>

<p>Many people take cameras to expedition, a few make it up to Top Camp, and
a very few get underground, where the equipment may or may not work, people
may or may not cooperate or get too cold and photographers may persist or
give up. Hence there are plenty of photos of Base Camp, festering, dead cars
etc., quite a lot of the walk in, Top Camp, the plateau, a fair number of
entrances, and a very few good underground shots.</p>

<p>Getting a collection of photos together to make an "expedition slide set"
has taken years, and is still not really satisfactory. There must be some
more good pictures out there ? August 1996 saw the first 99 slides (they
missed one) put onto Photo-CD, and a start made in getting these onto the
website. This is proving quite hard work, because digitisation is not very
tolerant of poor exposure, especially different exposure across the photo.
Correcting this is pretty time-consuming, though it can reveal unexpected
detail that was never really visible in slide shows.</p>

<p>Quite a bit of "notebook" photography has been done with a video camera
and digitiser card. This is a handy way of getting quick pictures of
entrances and approach routes (and much cheaper than Photo-CD, if you have the
equipment), but the quality leaves a certain amount to be desired (it would
be improved by a slightly less cheapo video digitiser). Some pictures are
also here courtesy of video of postcard-sized prints.</p>

<p>For 1997, a 2700 dpi transparency scanner should ensure that your
photos will make it to the web site quickly, without having to wait
to make up a set of 100 for a Photo-CD :-) Experience has also shown that
the final results are somewhat better as we have more control at the
scanning stage. See the <a href="../smkridge/161/pixlw.htm">Lost World</a>
virtual tour.</p>

<p>Since the above paragraphs were written, there has been a vast increase in
the prevalence of digital cameras. Unfortunately as these are even more
expensive than their film counterparts people are exceedingly unwilling to take
them underground. Hence underground photography has been rather thin on the
ground of late; we desperately need more photos of the further reaches of
Steinbr&uuml;ckenh&ouml;hle, for example.</p>

<h3>What needs doing in the future ?</h3>

<p>A number of photographs specifically illustrating topics in the Expedition
Handbook would be useful. We would prefer that this involved a practice rescue
in Yorkshire rather than a real one in Austria. Likewise, a bit of photography
during a practice survey trip would be good. Another topic, on which we have
neither words nor pictures, would be expedition rigging.</p>

<p>Almost every entrance needs documenting photographically, to make it
easier to find and identify. Some aerial photos would really help here. As a
temporary measure, there are various photos taken from the Br&auml;uning
Wall. With a bit of surface-survey visualisation software, these may even
get a few entrances marked...</p>

<p>The major need is for quality underground photographs. Of the couple of
score or so representing the 21.5km of Kaninchenh&ouml;hle, almost all had
to have quite a lot of hacking about to make them look acceptable on the
medium of the computer screen, though this has become rather easier now
we have access to a transparency scanner. In particular we are short of
pictures of the following:</p>

<ul>
<li>Vertical France</li>
<li>Left Hand Route</li>
<li>Garden Party</li>
<li>Powerstation</li>
<li>Drunk and Stupid</li>
<li>Dreamtime</li>
<li>Limo series, Gnome, Vestabule etc. etc.</li>
<li>Flapjack, Flat Battery, Gob on You etc.</li>
<li>Siberia, Leadmine, Maze</li>
<li>Interview Blues</li>
<li>Fine Clean Rock, Henri's Cat</li>
<li>Bottomless Pit, Hammeroids and other verticals</li>
<li>Alternative Universe, Dr. Snuggles etc.</li>
<li>Forbidden Land</li>
</ul>

<p>and we could do with rather more of</p>

<ul>
<li>Right Hand Route</li>
<li>Puerile Humour</li>
<li>Flat France (nearer France than Brownie's Cunt)</li>
<li> ... and almost everywhere else</li>
</ul>

<p>Photos showing approach routes would be useful, as would photos taken
(and carefully documented) during surface surveys.</p>

<h3>How to do it ?</h3>

<p>Scenario: Photographer gathers together all the equipment needed for a trip.
Three photographers and several helpers have volunteered. Photographer comes
back late and knackered from one trip - postpones the photographic trip.
Weather is crap - no one goes up to Top Camp, another postponement. One of the
photographers has to go home - hands all gear to another. Expo dinner - no one
doing anything. Finally the trip is on. Photographer at Top Camp religiously
tests all the equipment - it works perfectly.</p>

<p>Dodging showers, the team heads up to and into the cave. Through Triassic
Park and to the scene of the first photo. All flash equipment fails to go off.
Change connectors. Fails. Use slaves. Fails repeatedly until second
photographer fires an electronic flash at the roof to see how high it is -
slaves fire bulb flashes in dazzling coruscation of light - no cameras with
shutters open. Try again, bulbs fail to fire. After about an hour and a half,
everyone freezing and irate, give up and move to another site. Similar
performance, but with a stronger, colder draught. Cave now floods as
mega-thunderstorm occurs on surface. Party retreat along Triassic Park,
pausing for one or two more attempts. Exit, apparently after total failure.</p>

<p>In fact, the second photographer, who hasn't had his gear out of its ammo
can since his previous expedition photographic trip three years earlier, does
turn out to have a few usable shots.</p>

<p>This is probably how <b>not</b> to do it, though it does illustrate the
problems. Can anybody write something more positive?</p>

<hr />

<h3>More hints'n'tips, mainly on what not to do.</h3>
<ul>
<li>Don't use flash on camera, except a small flash used to fire slaves on
bigger flashes off-camera. Frontal lighting produces no shadows, so the
picture is flat and hard-to-understand. Also produces bright "red eye" in
cavers whose faces appear on the photo.</li>

<li>Do use a tripod - the heavier the better for photography, but worse
for caving with. Tiny pocket tripods are great for allowing cameras
topple off boulders and into the all-pervading mud, but crap for getting
your eye anywhere near the viewfinder.</li>

<li>Do use slaves. I don't mean people who will take orders (though they
certainly help - we call them "minions"). A slave is a small electronic
gadget which will fire one flash gun when another goes off. They are
triggered by the fast rising edge of light level produced by an electronic
flash, and will not go off in response to daylight, or a headlight flashing
across them. You can use several to ensure that all the flashes go off at the
same time, thus avoiding the problem that a caver has moved between two
manual firings of a flashgun, producing a "ghost" image.</li>

<li>Do use multiple flashes, but don't go over the top. Cavers see the cave
partly by their own head lamp, and partly by the lamps of others, so a
photo with multiple light sources looks "natural". However, with too many
lights, the result is a confusing mess. Two or three flashes are enough,
except in large chambers, where each flash is far enough apart to be clearly
seen as a separate caver/light patch.</li>

<li>Don't have more than two photographers working at once. Two cameras on
tripods using the same flashes is good economy, but more just reduces the
chances of the picture being taken in a finite time.</li>

<li>Don't use big flashes close to large boulders or to walls. To avoid
burning out the highlights and leaving deep shadows, try to get flashes
positioned so everything they illuminate is more-or-less the same distance
away. Often this means having your caver with his flash perched on a large
boulder, or hanging in the middle of a shaft.</li>

<li>To project light along a passage, or up a shaft, without burning out
the nearby walls, put a "funnel" of aluminium foil (shiny side in) over
the flashgun. This tends to change the effective guide number, so it's
worth doing some experiments in the UK first!</li>

<li>People can relate to photos looking straight up a shaft, but ones looking
straight down don't seem to work as well. Better if possible to get off to
one side and have a shot looking diagonally up or down.</li>

<li>Beware of posed action shots. Practice the timing and have them actually
moving when the flash fires, otherwise they look awkward and off-balance.</li>

<li>Photography rarely combines well with exploration - the trip just gets
slowed up too much with both bolting and photography and everyone gets cold.
However, quick snapshots at pitch heads or at the exits from crawls can
work if the photographer is fairly well practised. Similarly, photography
doesn't combine well with surveying, as both activities are slow-moving and
result in lots of people generating great clouds of steam.</li>

<li>Solo cave photography is possible, but like solo surveying, is time
consuming and frustrating. Photos with no people lack scale and are generally
a waste of effort.</li>

<li>Photography against the light can be very creative, but is also more
prone to cocks-up. Don't let the camera "see" the flash directly. A flash
hidden from the camera by a caver makes a good silhouette, but exposure is
difficult to calculate except by experience (ie. lots of failed shots).
A flash hidden round a bend, and reflecting off wet walls can also be very
good. However, this doesn't work as well when everything is more-or-less
muddy.</li>

<li>Take notes. When starting underground photography, some shots work well,
whilst others fail. If you don't record what you did, you'll never know why.
Once you can avoid those shots which produced crap results, you have more
practice refining the good shots, and people will be more willing to come
on photo trips with you.</li>
</ul>
<hr />

<h3>Choice of gear</h3>

<p>Just a few brief notes:</p>

<p><b>Camera:</b> preferably use a robust camera with minimal electronics
(the most sophisticated of metering is useless in the dark :-) For black and
white work, many prefer 2&frac14;" square format (120) film, often using an
old folding camera. For colour, 35mm is almost universal. If you want an SLR,
the old Zenith ones can stand being dropped a considerable distance in an
ammo can. They also fulfil the final criterion on cost: don't take a camera
underground unless you can afford to write it off.</p>

<p>Some cavers in recent years have had some success with pocket-size digital
cameras.  These are much more delicate than a film camera, but vastly smaller
and lighter and easier to carry around. It seems unlikely that these will
supplant film cameras for 'artistic' photography with fifteen different
flashguns in enormous chambers, but they have the vast advantage of allowing
you to see on the spot if you've taken a completely blank exposure. They are
probably ideally suited to 'notebook' style photography, just photographing
anything you find without worrying overmuch about quality: any photos are
better than no photos.</p>

<p><b>Flash:</b> You can get more light from a bulb flash than electronic,
and they are less sensitive to damp, though still far from wholly reliable.
Bulbs cost a lot more per flash than an electronic gun, and are less reliable
as the master flash for setting off slave units. Some slave units also fail
to fire bulb flashes, or can even be damaged by them. And finally, it is
getting hard to obtain flashbulbs as they are widely regarded as obsolete.</p>

<p><b>Film:</b> If possible, use more light, rather than faster film. In big
passage or chambers, this may not be feasible. 400 ASA film is fine for
postcard sized prints, but dreadfully grainy for enlargements, for
projection, or to be scanned for the website. The best results for scanning
seem to come from 100 ASA negative film - go for amateur films, which have
more exposure latitude, cope with a greater contrast range in the subject,
and are invariably cheaper than professional emulsions. 64 or 100 ASA seems
to be about right for slides.</p>

<p><b>Protection:</b> the classic is the ex-military ammunition tin or
"ammo-can". There are two sizes useful for photography, 3&frac12;" and 6".
The latter are really heavy and clumsy to carry, whilst the former are a very
tight or impossible fit for most SLRs with the lens on (and carrying a
camera with the lens off is asking for shit inside). Whichever is used,
the inside should be padded with old karrimat or something similar. Don't
rely on the little metal handle - these have been known to pop their spot
welds - use some chunky nylon tape, especially in vertical cave.</p>

<p>One alternative is the Peli or Otter polycarbonate case (the Peli ones are
famously guaranteed against all damage except shark attacks, bear attacks and
children under 5). These appear to be genuinely indestructible and much lighter
than ammo cans, but they are expensive. <a href="../sponsr.htm">Sponsorship</a>
from Peli in 2004 might bring a few more into circulation.</p>

<p>Another option is the plastic "BDH" or "Daren" drum. These are lighter, have
less awkward corners to catch in crawls, but are more difficult to fit
rectangular objects into. They are also slightly more prone to fall over, and
the lids are more easily mislaid. "Rocket" tubes are similar.</p>

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