Friday 30 May 2014

Status Update on all things cave photography related

LED Lighting for Cave Photography

I have rather neglected this blog in the last 3 years. Not that I have been idle. I have spent most of the last 3 years (when not being kept busy by my young family) specialising in panoramic underground photography. I have developed my own high power LED photography lights for this. A detailed series of 3 articles on my light design and build process can be found in the BCRA CREG Journal (British Cave Research Association, Cave Radio and Electronics Group). This excellent journal is available in electronic download (PDF format) for a bargain £4 (GBP) per year. My articles are in editions 80, 8182.

Upgrading my cave photography flashes

I am in the process of upgrading my caving flashes to something which will hopefully be more reliable vs all the cable connected 2nd hand conversion jobs I have been lugging around for years. Typically the cables are the point of failure. This is what I am trying out YONGNUO OEM YN-560 III. I bought one trial unit plus their RF-603 radio triggers. Smaller, lighter flash and hopefully more reliable radio triggers (and powered by AAA cells rather than Alkaline 12V battery, so it will be much easier to change them underground if they run down). I will report further once testing has occurred underground.

Panoramas

I have been developing my skills and techniques for taking panoramic underground photographs. I have quite a bit of work to post on this blog, but for now here is the photo which really kick started me down this path.
Hall of the 30, Otter Hole, Forest of Dean, UK

More of my panoramic work can be found in my Flicker Album