mirror of
https://expo.survex.com/repositories/expoweb/.git/
synced 2024-11-22 15:21:55 +00:00
276 lines
14 KiB
HTML
276 lines
14 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
|
|
<html>
|
|
<head>
|
|
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf8" />
|
|
<title>CUCC Expedition Handbook: Photography</title>
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../css/main2.css" />
|
|
</head>
|
|
<body>
|
|
<h2 id="tophead">CUCC Expedition Handbook</h2>
|
|
<h1>Photography</h1>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>However, as yet, no one has volunteered to write an expo photography guide. So this (decades-old) 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" ? (as of about 1999)</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="../1623/161/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
|
|
Steinbrückenhöhle, 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 Bräuning
|
|
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 Kaninchenhöhle, 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 2¼" 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, 3½" 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>
|
|
|
|
<hr />
|
|
|
|
</body>
|
|
</html>
|
|
|