Photographing Pits

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Photographing Pits

Postby KeyserSoze » Jun 3, 2014 4:23 pm

This weekend I am going to try my first real attempt at a photo shoot in a pit cave and I am hoping to get some advice on how to go about it. I want to photograph from the bottom of the pit looking upward with a climber on rope. My plan is to have the climber take a flash up the rope and stop at intervals to flash the pit.

The main question I have is how to control the camera. Should I put the camera on bulb mode and take one long exposure, or should I take a series of photographs and stitch them together in photoshop later? If I do the stitching method should I keep the camera in one fixed position, or would it be better to pan the camera upward with each shot and stitch the photos together as a panorama?

Also, how should climber go about shooting the flash? She he only shoot it once each time, or should there be multiple flashes in different directions?

Any advice would be appreciated.


This is an example of the type of shot I will be going for. The pit I am photographing is about 100 feet deep and 25 feet wide.
http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/104/cache/ellisons-cave_10469_990x742.jpg
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Re: Photographing Pits

Postby Leclused » Jun 4, 2014 6:52 am

Hi,

The following photo is made by P de Bie and A Vanhoutte using the 2nd method (several photos and stiching). This pit is about 175m (575 feet) deep and about 145m (475 feet) is in this photo. There was a small displacement of the camera to take the photos of the highest part.

http://www.associationmontmarcou.fr/cli ... puits.html

Dagobert L'Ecluse
You may try to contact Paul but he is a very busy person. (PM me for contact details)
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Re: Photographing Pits

Postby KeyserSoze » Jun 5, 2014 4:19 pm

Thanks for the advice. That is a nice image. I like how the caver is lit up; makes me wonder how they got him so well lit all the way to the top. Was the a second caver on rope below him with another flash?
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Re: Photographing Pits

Postby Leclused » Jun 6, 2014 2:27 am

This picture was taken by 2 persons and the 2nd person (the photographer) was not on rope during the making of the pictures.

The caver: she was using a least 2 flashes from wich one very porwerfull to lit the pit. The 2nd flash was hanging a bit lower under here in the tackle bag so she was lit up from below.

The photographer was using also a flash a the bottom (but it could be that he used it only for the pictures from the lower part of the pit)

Caver and photographer were in contact with a 2-way radio, because speaking/shouting was not an option due to the water coming down in the pit.

BR

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Re: Photographing Pits

Postby KeyserSoze » Jun 6, 2014 11:49 am

Very clever. One other question. Did you adjust the focus at all as the climber got further away or did you lock the focus starting from the beginning of the shoot?
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Re: Photographing Pits

Postby Leclused » Jun 6, 2014 12:28 pm

KeyserSoze wrote:Very clever. One other question. Did you adjust the focus at all as the climber got further away or did you lock the focus starting from the beginning of the shoot?

That is a question for the maker P de Bie. I' ll ask him when he is back next week, we are members of the same club
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