Carrickbeg Rising, County Fermanagh

It being summer and all, another wet cave was knocked off the list, this time Carrickbeg Rising in County Fermanagh. Only a few pics to show from this short cave as I did not feel like getting my camera too wet nor did I like asking cavers to pose while threading water 🙂

Nice cave, nice company, nice day day out

Follow the link: Carrickbeg Rising

New Discoveries in North Leitrim

This weekend a joint effort by Shannon Group, Breifne Caving Club and Queens University Caving Club led to the discovery of a new 50 meter pitch on Largy in North Leitrim. The fantastic new pitch, found after a short dig through a gravel choked crawl, leads into a large chamber shared by a neighbouring pothole, Pollrunda and makes for and excellent through trip.

Click here to read the article and see photos from the trip

A Swim in Arch Cave, Co. Fermanagh.

I have added a new page of photos from a trip to Arch Cave in County Fermanagh.

Follow the link here to see the article

Beginnings…

I have always enjoyed taking photos and continue to take my camera with me most places I go. When I started caving it seemed natural to take my camera into caves as well, where I soon found it difficult to get decent photos. My first shots were on a manual compact camera using it’s built-in flash and displayed the typical cave photo scenario â€ lots of black spaces, bad focus and, most frustratingly, air moisture filling the entire frame. A good example of one of my very first cave photos follows, and this is of the ones I chose not to delete!:

Pollnagollum (Of The Boats), November 2012. Taken on Canon Powershot with inbuilt flash.

I have made improvements by taking more lighting equipment underground, using a DSLR camera and transporting it all in waterproof boxes. Nearly all the gear I use for cave photography is second hand and bought cheap. Taking better cave photos does require familiarisation with certain technical aspects associated with flash photography, but for the most part it is relatively straight forward and the biggest difficulties are met in lugging gear around underground and cleaning it all after the trip!

Pollnagollum (Of The Boats), June 2014. Taken on Canon 450D with one flashbulb and one off‐camera electronic flash.

More photos from Pollnagollum (Of the Boats) can be seen here.