The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Ruakuri caves near Waitomo, New Zealand. You can photograph in the Ruakuri caves, but not Waitomo. The biggest problem is others using red lights used to focus mobile phones (flash is banned). I hung back on advice of the guide and managed 3 photos in 3 minutes. It is pitch black inside the cave. I did think of using a smidge of daylight balanced LED light, but did not have time. There are some glow worm caves relatively near home, so I might try there. The aim was to capture the unknown including the food trapping filaments and some of the cave context.
The repost. I added a bit to the bottom of the photo as per suggestion. This is from another, similar photo, however the similar photo is not quite as sharp as the original posted. I have also cleaned up sensor hotspots from the whole image and the glow worm top rhs is burnt in slightly.
I will post the original raw file in the appropriate area.
Do you think that introducing a very small amount of balanced LED light would spoil the image? Could I improve the crop? Anything else you see?
Technical Details
120 seconds, F3.5, ISO 3200 focal length approx 45mm on full frame, tripod. (pls ignore metadata that states >1024 secs) Exposure increased by 1,5 f stop on processing. Highlights reduced so the worm glow was not blown out.
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Rob, this is really fascinating and unique - and especially interesting to me, since we are headed to NZ next March. I’d love more information on this place - I’ll message you.
Perfect saturation and comp.
I just love it -
“Fascinating” is right. I’ve never seen anything like this before. You exposed it well and I like the composition. If you could do it easily, I’d consider leaving a little more dark space between the lower bright cluster and the edge of the frame, but that’s minor. Thanks for sharing this.
Fascinating, and obviously not easy to pull off. I wonder if there is just a bit more detail in the blacks? They look very crushed at the edges of some of the glows. It might take a very careful curves adjustment to bring out a good balance, and maybe even starting with a linear profile.
Amazing! What an experience this must have been. This is a fascinating image and I’d love to know more about those glowing creatures. Could you add just a tad to the bottom to kind of balance it? Thanks for sharing this.
Glow worms are the larvae of a particular gnat. They start off small - some 3 mm and grow to some 30 mm before they pupate. The gnat itself has no stomach or mouth so dies soon after mating. They then get eaten by other glow worms whose main food source is flying insects - hence the light to attract them. The flying insects get stuck in the sticky filaments hanging from the glow worm “nest” and the glow worms then reel them in similar to going fishing.
This is really cool, Rob. I don’t think you need to introduce any more light unless you really want to provide more of a sense of environment. To me this is all about the worms, not the cave, so I’m fine with the solid black background in most of the image.
