A Technical Question

[taykuyphotoart]

I have lost the exif data for this picture, but I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions for taking a photo like this. It is an underground cave waterfall (Ruby Falls, Tennessee) partially lit artificially. The waterfall is huge, so flash will not do, but the low shutter speed required is also not friendly to the tourists who are shuffling people about CONSTANTLY... So... what could I do?

[Teewinot]

My first suggestion is bring a tripod and have it attached to your camera at all times so all you have to do is open it, set it down, and shoot.

When I shot a cave seriously last summer, I carried around my flexible mini tripod (5 inches tall), since my regular tripod is too heavy and too hard to set up quickly (I need to get nicer one!). That said, I looked for railings and tried to latch the flexible legs of the mini tripod to the bars as best I could. I also knelt down to get better body and hand stability. Finally, I hung out at the back of the line so I was always last to see (and photograph) everything. The only downside is that you have to set up your shot fast to keep up with the group as it moves to the next stop (but at least this way no one should be in your way).

One other suggestion I have is to lower your flash intensity. While any level of flash isn't always desirable in cave shots, a low-level flash at least is an improvement if you don't have time to set up anything more complicated.

Finally, you can use a flash and then just consider post-processing. Photoshop (or other programs) can work wonders in fixing the 'flash' look as long as the shot didn't get totally blown out. With some of my flash shots, I played with levels, color balance, and saturation until I achieved a more realistic 'natural light' look. These shots didn't match up with the quality of the non-flash shots, but they were close.

Hope this helps!