This was quite challenging but fun. Testing the waterproofing of my old FujiFilm XT3 made me a little nervous, but wet from rainwater isn’t quite as worrying as being splashed by seawater, which happens often!
An element of the exposure fails the images, but rectifying it is possible. The cave is longer than it looks from this perspective. I’d say it’s around 20 metres long, most of which is dark to black, devoid of detail to even the best sensors.
Even increasing the camera’s dynamic range while bracketing the exposure didn’t come near recording all the tonal detail I wanted. It’s an extreme latitude.
I had hoped that waiting for the tide to flood the cave with a foaming white surf would add some illumination to the cave walls and ceiling, but no, not nearly enough.
The solution is to bracket more extremely, then blend the exposures in Photoshop. However, I’m not very excited by editing projects like that and rather capture everything in one exposure, whenever possible.
I even considered lighting the cave interior with portable flashlights, but creating a light that looks natural in such a tight, difficult space is also very challenging.
If you have any alternative suggestions, please do pop me an email.
Thank you. Bjorn
