ZA2009

This image was originally taken on 2009-07-04 inside the Cango Caves, Oudtshoorn, South Africa, during an "adventure tour" of the caves. This image is very appealing to me on several levels:

* Texture: The texture of the limestone formations is very rich. The background "organ pipes" contrast with the rounder formation in the foreground, although the foreground formation has several smaller "pipes," too.

* Color: I set the white balance to "cloudy" for this shot. So, instead of the natural cream color, I obtained a very orange-red color from the scene. For many years, the limestone formations in the caves were presented with brightly-colored lights. Now, they use mostly natural light, but I obtained the "old-style" colors by tweaking the setting on the camera.

* Technique: I used my 85 mm, f/1.8 lens to make this photo in the very low light conditions. Because the "adventure tour" is a strenuous walking and climbing affair, there was no way I could take my camera bag or my (small) tripod with me. So, I brought only the camera with mounted lens into the caves. And, using the on-camera flash would have ruined the shot. So, I had to hand-hold the camera without flash. The light was so low that even at f/1.8, the light meter indicated a shutter speed of 1/15 sec. To obtain blur-free images, it is typically advised that the shutter speed should be faster than the inverse of the lens length in mm, or for this lens 1/85 sec. What to do? I put the camera on multiple exposure mode and fired off several frames (10 or so, I think), hoping that one would be clean. This one came out crystal clear!

* Intent: I was hoping to get an iconic-like image from inside the caves. I think my result is better than a similar image in the gallery of the official Cango Caves website.