I have been exploring drains and caves for a while now and want to improve my underground photography. Up to now I've been using point and shoot cameras with flash, but I want up the quality of my pictures, capture more detail, light paint,etc. So other than use a tripod, what tips and tricks can people suggest? How many lights do you use? Placement? How long exposure on average?10 sec? 30 sec? 60sec? iso and aperature settings? Light painting tips and equipment? Tips for keeping dust and water out of camera equipment? I'm also looking for a new camera so this will help me determine what features in my new camera I need. Thanks in advance for any replies

Any low light photography tips at all?

For mines, tunnels, or caves I normally light paint with either a spotlight, headlamp, or multiple flashlights. Most of the time i keep it on a 20-30sec timer, around F/13 and either 400 or 800iso. I shoot theaters too which take a longer time to light paint since the greater the area. Those i use a remote for. Play around with the timer and bright ass lights. Dont keep the lights directed at one area or it'll be blown out. Either bounce it into the shot, move around, or hit the spotlight in short bursts. If you head into my 2015 photography thread i just put up, you can see some mines (which were pitch black) and see how they turned out. Add me on Flickr to see more.

Obviously all this is only possible with a tripod. Experiment with long exposures, and try other things such as fireworks, steel wool, lightpainting words, anything else you can imagine.

When shooting underground, having a good lighting setup is key.

For drains i usually shoot at f8 with an exposure of 10-15 secs, iso around 200. Check your photo to see if there's no burnt out whites and adjust your settings if necessary. A tripod is a must, as is a pretty wide lens.

Use multiple lights that you place around in the room or tunnel that you're photographing. I have diffusers om my lights that give a soft even light and avoid spots in your picture.

Another thing you can do is put a person in your picture for scale. You can backlight that person and/or have him/her hold a light source.

Here I have placed a bright spotlight in the right tunnel. I, behind the camera am holding a diffused light to give detail to the foreground and the person in the picture is holding a flashlight with diffuser.


Here I placed a spotlight to backlight the person and a diffuse light to give some detail to the foreground.


Just play around with shadows, different setups and camera settings. This type of photography is very hard and challenging, but can be very rewarding.

Off-Limits and Rinzler nailed it, though I never had as much success underground as my friends using the same setup did!

Posted by Rinzler Add me on Flickr to see more.

You might want to tell him who you are on Flickr....

https://www.flickr...otos/44371189@N06/