Raymond Crystal Cave images...E3 and 7~14mm

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Raymond Crystal Cave images...E3 and 7~14mm

Postby Darklight » Mar 19, 2008 4:04 pm

Well, I finally dragged (pushed, shoved, kicked) my Olympus E3 and 7~14mm lens underground. I am going through somewhat of a re-education with digital dSLR imagery, so it was sort of rough going.

I was pleased with most of the compositions. I decided to plan ahead and (in my head) select just a few section of the cave to concentrate on (to make study of, so to speak) rather than try to image the whole hole. So, with specific areas in mind, I was able to set up pretty quick.

With the help of a few fellow cavers, and two Firefly slaves, we got some fairly descent results. Actually, it was a miracle any of them turned out! I shot all the images in RAW+JPEG, but inadvertently set the camera to automatically adjust the gradation. This resulted in very "blown" shadows and a correspondingly horrible amount of noise. This setting made the LCD previews look beautiful, when in fact they were artificially bright. My RAW files were terribly underexposed. I was able to run some noise algorithms on the JPEGS and salvage these few samples. Live and learn.

All were shot at 7mm (14mm @35mm film equivalent). I really love this lens!

http://www.pbase.com/darklightimagery/raymond_crystal_cave
C.G. Anderson
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Re: Raymond Crystal Cave images...E3 and 7~14mm

Postby batrotter » Mar 20, 2008 4:48 am

Nice pics!
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Re: Raymond Crystal Cave images...E3 and 7~14mm

Postby tncaver » Mar 20, 2008 8:12 am

Nice shots Chris. I really like the leaning trees on the edge of the pic. Ha, ha. Just kidding. Wide angle is great for
taking in cave shots of formations, or just about anything up close or in small areas. I used to use a 24mm lens with
my film camera all the time and it was never wide enough. Your 7-14mm should take some great closeups. Thanks
for sharing.
John Hutchison :waving:
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Re: Raymond Crystal Cave images...E3 and 7~14mm

Postby Darklight » Mar 20, 2008 5:35 pm

Thanks, all. You know, they probably make some sort of Photoshop plug-in that can be used to straighten trees;-)

My old film mainstay lens was a 24mm, and close to the end of my slide days was a 21mm (we shot the Rumble Room with one). A buddy of mine had an 18mm, but it seemed too wide at the time. What I like about the 7mm (14mm equivalent) is the perspectives it affords. For example, the gypsum crystals in the Gypsum Gallery image are very close to the lens. You can, and almost should, have something interesting like this close, with another object in the main field to draw attention.

Another thing I really like about my dSLR, is the live view feature. You can now see what is going on as you set up a shot on the LCD screen. I think this was pioneered by Olympus, but I could be wrong. Anyway, with the E3, you can zoom in on very small areas of the field to check focus. I found this very handy and practically indispensable at 7mm. I found myself checking the crystals right up next to the lens, setting a focus point that rendered both near and far in focus (instead of relying on a guess). Although the LCD output goes to black and white in really low light levels, the zoomed section, as illuminated by my Sten, were bright and colorful. Very nice!

I was unable to test the wireless remote feature I have, as I left the battery for the thing back home....

CG
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