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 octopus7
  
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Gender: Male
 |  |  | First attempt at drain photos
< on 7/11/2009 1:12 AM >
|  | | | The other night myself, my fiancee and 3 friends ventured down Melbourne's Mini-tenth storm water drain. After swearing and cursing at my camera because I couldn't get the settings fixed up properly I missed out on taking photos of the drains huge main chamber. We then set off down a side tunnel to explore this huge place. After climbing up several large steps via ladders we reached the drain's guest book area, which we promptly all signed (attn any Cave Clan members your location sheets down there are pretty moth eaten and unreadable)
We then set up our cameras, broke out the sparklers and lights and had some fun. Here are the results they are taken with a 35mm Minolta Dymax 3i SLR camera on 15-30 sec exposures. I know I can improve on these but am happy for a first effort.
1. First attempt at a silhouette shot, yep that's me!
2. sparklers and red LED head lamp
3. Sparklers and LED torch (in side pipe)
4. Walking towards the missus holding an LED and xenon torch with red LED head lamp. My mate went sick with a sparkler around her.
Melbourne City Drain painters - We go in Drains!
"darkness is our canvas, light is our medium"
http://www.flickr.com/groups/mcdp |
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Glass
     
Location: Chicago
as one does
| | | Re: First attempt at drain photos
<Reply # 1 on 7/11/2009 1:15 AM >
| | | | That last is cool, but you need to pay a little more attention to your focus.
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octopus7
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Gender: Male
| | | Re: First attempt at drain photos
<Reply # 2 on 7/11/2009 4:19 AM >
| | | | Posted by Glass
That last is cool, but you need to pay a little more attention to your focus.
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Next time we go draining we are taking one of those big rechargeable spotlights with us for the sole purpose of focusing our shots. Thanks for the comment!
Melbourne City Drain painters - We go in Drains!
"darkness is our canvas, light is our medium"
http://www.flickr.com/groups/mcdp |
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AnAppleSnail
Location: Charlotte, NC
Gender: Male
ALL the flashlights!
| |  | | Re: First attempt at drain photos
<Reply # 3 on 7/11/2009 4:30 AM >
| | | | Posted by octopus7
Next time we go draining we are taking one of those big rechargeable spotlights with us for the sole purpose of focusing our shots. Thanks for the comment!
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My trick is to use a small light, hit something at the right place, half-press the trigger for AF to do its thing, turn off the light, and do whatever I was going to do. My favorite light is usually plenty for that, and then for light-painting a long shot. Manual focusers who need stealth (skylines at night on a military base) can use a laser pointer, just make it the dot it oughta be.
Achievement Unlocked
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Glass
Location: Chicago
as one does
| | | Re: First attempt at drain photos
<Reply # 4 on 7/11/2009 6:19 AM >
|  | | | Snail said what I was going to. For autofocusing you can even have someone with their cell phone lit up. Hit them with a focus point, half press, then when you're sharp, click back to manual focusing so it keeps the distance.
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Steed
 
Location: Edmonton/Seoul
Gender: Male
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Race Traitor
| | | Re: First attempt at drain photos
<Reply # 5 on 7/11/2009 6:59 AM >
| | | | I've heard if you open the shutter very wide, the depth of focus increases so you'll have to worry less about being out of focus. You just have to get used to much longer exposures.
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octopus7
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Gender: Male
| | | Re: First attempt at drain photos
<Reply # 6 on 7/11/2009 9:08 AM >
| | | | Thanks a lot for the help guys as I really appreciate it! Will definetely give the half pressing of the shutter button for AF a go. At the moment I have the camera set in manual shutter mode, with 15 second exposure. I will put that upto 30 secs and see what difference it makes.
Melbourne City Drain painters - We go in Drains!
"darkness is our canvas, light is our medium"
http://www.flickr.com/groups/mcdp |
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snap228
Location: New Paltz, NY
Gender: Female
"A man who holds the cat by the tail learns something he can learn no other way."
| | Re: First attempt at drain photos
<Reply # 7 on 7/11/2009 10:50 AM >
| | | | Posted by racetraitor
I've heard if you open the shutter very wide, the depth of focus increases so you'll have to worry less about being out of focus. You just have to get used to much longer exposures.
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The smaller the aperture, the more DOF. So a 16 F-stop would have more depth of field than a 5.6. Good ole photo class taught me that. 
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Glass
Location: Chicago
as one does
| | | Re: First attempt at drain photos
<Reply # 8 on 7/11/2009 2:48 PM >
| | | | Since you're working with limited light and time, make sure your aperture is wide open so you can get all that exposure in your camera!
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digital_me
Location: Colorado
Gender: Male
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
| | | Re: First attempt at drain photos
<Reply # 9 on 7/12/2009 12:21 AM >
| | | | I usually shoot drains at f/8 these days and use manual focus. AF is a crapshoot underground. I've lost too many otherwise good images to bad focus to bother with AF anymore. Of course, my exposures are correspondingly longer-as much as five minutes sometimes. If you can't do bulb mode, you'll have to make do with a wider aperture.
Edit: I also use film, so some of that exposure length is due to compensation for reciprocity failure. But still, f/8 means an exposure that is much longer than f/2.5 or f/1.8.
[last edit 7/12/2009 12:23 AM by digital_me - edited 1 times]
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Shutter
Location: Raleigh NC
Gender: Male
| | | Re: First attempt at drain photos
<Reply # 10 on 7/12/2009 10:04 PM >
| | | | I think 4 would have better balance it the side tunnel was lit like in 3.
Thats the biggest change I noticed other than ones previously mentioned
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Man Underground
Location: Oz
Gender: Male
freedom of choice ~ choose well
| | Re: First attempt at drain photos
<Reply # 11 on 7/19/2009 1:03 AM >
| | | | Here are some pic's from the same drain on the same night. Thanks to octopus7 who invited me along to my first drain exploration and to this forum. I did enjoy myself and feel I'm already hooked. I'm also into photography as an amateur but night shooting is new to me.
I, too, had focus problems but many good suggestions raised in this thread to combat that issue.
.. some Ps work done, I can't help it. And yes, we can only get better, right?
zombie blood bath
I know not what I do, but when I do it |
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octopus7
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Gender: Male
| | | Re: First attempt at drain photos
<Reply # 12 on 7/20/2009 9:51 AM >
| | | | Geez my attempt at writing with sparklers...FAIL
I was trying to write out "Mini-tenth" :{}
Just wait until I make up my LED light wheel and LED light sticks, won't need sparklers anymore!
my favourite pic of your is the bottom one, taken near the step.
great photos mate.
Melbourne City Drain painters - We go in Drains!
"darkness is our canvas, light is our medium"
http://www.flickr.com/groups/mcdp |
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