#dirou

Having posted some more pictures from the flowstone caves of Dirou, I guess it could be interesting to tell a little bit about it and about taking pictures in almost complete darkness.

During my short stay in Greece, the flowstone caves of Dirou were of course a "must-visit". About 3-5 km of the caves are accessible by boat. The boat-trip lasts about 30min. The passageways were very narrow and the ceiling was quite low sometimes. And when I say "quite low", I mean extremely low: About 50-60 cm (2ft) to the water surface.

And it was dark. The stalagtites and stalagmites (who shut me in and locked me tight - excuse the inappropriate Genesis reference ^^) were lit by floodlights. Else it was ... well ... dark. I was equipped with my Canon 550D (T2i), my "nifty-fifty" Canon EF 50mm 1.8II, my Canon EF 28-135mm and the Canon EF18-55mm kit lens. I didn't bring a flash, because ... well, actually I forgot to bring it. But I guess, I wouldn't have used it anyway (I love to work with ambient light whenever possible) and I also guess, I wouldn't have been allowed to use it. I was unsure, which lens to use. There were three factors that I tried to weigh up against each other: Darkness, the unsteady boat and the narrowness of the caves. The "nifty-fifty" of course is the fastest lens. It is almost 2 stops faster than the other two lenses on the wide side. But the nifty-fifty is unstabilized and has (on the APS-C sensor of my camera) a quite narrow angle of view, which makes it even harder to keep the camera still with longer exposure times. And the DOF at 1.8 is very shallow. Both other lenses are stabilized, so... rocky boat + longer exposure times + a bit more DOF because of maximum aperture of 3.5 ... hmmm ... I went with the kit lens, because it is a good amount wider than the 28-135mm. At that time, I was quite cautious with ISOs, so I had my camera restricted to max ISO 1600. In the meantime I have learned, that even ISO 3200 is not really a problem (for me) when shooting mainly for the web or putting the pictures in a photobook. And yes, the first couple of pictures turned out quite well.

But then it got even darker... I was really tempted to change lenses in almost complete darkness, in that rocky boat "surrounded" by salty water (it dripped from the ceiling, so it was not just below me). I thought one or two minutes about it and then I said: "No, I won't risk, losing a lens or getting saltwater into my camera" ... and then I ducked because of a low passage... and changed lenses. About three times during that 30 minute underworld-trip.

Underground

We visited the caves of Dirou today and I was really insecure about what lens to use on my Canon 550D (T2i). My first choice of course was the very fast 50mm 1.8 II. But due to the crop-factor of the APS sensor I have a very narrow angle of view (like that of a 80mm lens). What to do? I had the 18-55 kit-lens with me and my 28-135. Since both are stabilized and both have an max. aperture of 3.5 I took the wider 18-55 lens. I set it to TV-mode (shutter priority) and used 1/25s at auto-ISO with maximum ISO of 1600. I know, that I can shoot 1/25s at 18mm quite well, without too much camera shake by hand. Of course I shot RAW. When back home, I guess, I’ll see if this was the right choice…