Pictures from Florida Cave Diving

[ethanb]

I'm just back from a week of cave diving in Florida with Tami Thomsen and Paul (WIDiver_Paul). We spent five days in Luraville, two in Marianna, and two surveying a spring in Alabama. Tami was teaching a class, so I dove with Paul most of the week. The weather was decent and the viz was great.

I brought along my camera, the Canon s410 in a Canon DC800 housing (discussed in an earlier thread), and finally got some undewater pictures I'm happy with. It's amazing how much better it works in clear water, even with low light. For natural light photos, the exposure time is still fairly long (what do you except with a tiny sensor), but I could get good results by bracing the camera against
rocks. Flash photos are better, but still aren't that great - the strobe is too close to the lens and I get tons of backscatter, except when I'm very close. Hopefully an external flash and/or wide-angle lens will solve this. The flash will let me work further away without backscatter, and the wide-angle lens will let me work closer without accidently "chopping off parts."

Paul is the subject is all of these photos, except for a few of the far-away silhouettes. The images were processed in Photoshop, using some degree of auto-contrast and auto-color and unsharp mask (typical settings 125%/1.0/3.0). I'm not totally happy with the results of the processing - I did it at work on a computer with a junky monitor and I think I overdid the sharpening a bit.

Ginnie Springs:










Peacock:




Twin Spring:




Jackson Blue:
















Shangri la:


Critters:




Busted Trailer Tongue: (6:30 AM the morning after Thanksgiving, on I-75 near Corbin, Kentucky)

[fishchaser]

Very cool pix. Thanks for sharing!

(ouch on the trailer!)

[dfreeman]

Great pictures except for the death of the trailer tongue.

Some of the silhouettes may look better in black and white. Use the Gradient Map feature in PhotoShop to test it out.

The camera rig that you describe is a a good one for a reasonable price. I have several friends with these cameras and they do a great job. An external strobe really helps the flask pictures.

Keep on diving.

Doug

[freediverND]

I have got to get outta here. Those pictures look like it would be a great place to do some freediving! I haven't been in the water for way way too long!!!

[pink_fins]

Wow, great pictures. A buddy and I will be in the area around Valentines Day. ;D

We are both cavern certified and want to try a few other caverns.
Anyone have any experience at Madison Blue or Vortex?

Been to Blue Grotto, Devils Den,Ginnie.Paradise,Royal

I was trained in Orange, Peacock 1 and 3. He was trained at ginnie.

Again, great pictures. That water is so CLEAR. Wish Wisconsin had some clear water like that
gail

[freediverND]

On several occassions I've wondered if the "no scuba divers beyond this point unless cave certified" signs I've found under water pertain to me as at the time I wasn't scubadiving. I will say this though.. what an erie feeling going just beyond the natural light.. never would have dreamed that looking back toward the opening it would all blend in with the surrounding walls of the cave and there would be absolutely no rays of light to guide you.. at least where I was. Don't flame me on going freediving in a cave... it was only once that I went beyond the natural light.. and once was enough.... I think
Fred

[ethanb]

Paul -

I was looking through the photos and found a few more good ones. Keep in mind that I took 650 and saved over 400 - there's only a few dozen I liked.

Here's one you might find amusing!

[ethanb]

Here's a couple more shots from that sequence. I love digital - I took five photos in under a minute. In this case, all five came out well, but most of the time I'd just end up with five bad shots. I don't think I'd ever learn anything shooting film - I'd be too afraid of screwing up to take lots of pictures. With digital I can take tons of pictures - when I get decent ones (mainly through dumb luck) I just need to remember how I did it.

The files are all stamped at 4:42 PM on 11/28 - too bad that Canon doesn't do time stamps down to the second. I'm not sure if Ginnie was amazingly clear or if I was just getting amazingly close.

I think you're installing the jump to the "Catacombs" on the second dive at Ginnie. That was right before my fin fell off and my light failed while I was repairing the strap.

Ready to jump:


Jump:


Ethan

[fishchaser]

Are you sure? You need a program that can read the EXIF information. I have an "ancient" Canon A20 and it records the data. I use Adobe Photoshop Album for cataloging all my pix, and if you do "Properties" on the shot, it will give you more information than you know what to do with, including time down to the second.

[ethanb]

Are you sure? You need a program that can read the EXIF information. I have an "ancient" Canon A20 and it records the data. I use Adobe Photoshop Album for cataloging all my pix, and if you do "Properties" on the shot, it will give you more information than you know what to do with, including time down to the second.
[/quote]

You are correct... I thought it was a possibility (especially since most common date 32-bit formats are accurate to the second), but most programs only display hh:mm. I feel stupid now though - I just looked on some automatically generated web pages using my photos, and they include EXIF time stamps to the second.

Ethan