Would you like cave diving as much if the caves were well lit?

[tsimon]

I like to swim along with my light pointed at the ceiling a little ahead of me, not quite straight up. I like the twilight effect, and if there are air pockets they'll reflect moving patterns of light back down in front of me.

Don't forget the shadow animal shapes!

I prefer the not alot of light it makes the cave, cave like.

[rchrds]

Vortex has lights? Interesting. I think one of the things we miss out on cave diving (or maybe it's just me cause nobody like my caves) (or maybe its just me) is the large groups of people wandering around the big rooms. There is nothing quite like being in a huge dry cave room with one part of your group climbing down the breakdown 1/4 mile away on the other side while the middle party is half way down, and you are on the top watching the whole thing- It's cool to see all the little lights, and get a feel for how large the room really is. We have some of that in our underwater caves, but because of light loss, and the fact that there really aren't that many REALLY large rooms in most of the touristy caves. Those that have had the chance to see the cube room, or some of the wakulla passage and stuff like that will probably lean on the side of the more light is better- though, I'm not sure that is really what the OP was asking... I like caves for the exploration- but I would still like caves if I could explore them fully lit.

[Xenia]

I've wondered when I'm in a really dark or very large tunnel what it would be like if suddenly someone switched on the lights I really like to "see" as much of the cave as I can, but I also enjoy shielding my light and enjoying the view with my buddy's light only.

+1
I love the darkness that's why I shield my light. However, when I don't cover it I love to see more cave and the more the light the better. I can't forget how much I re-fell in love with Manatee when Bobby modified my light. The dark rock would absorb it beautifully but I would see more rock and that was amazing.

And then there's video and photography! How amazing is that Diepolder picture by Wes Skiles... How much light was needed to get such a picture in such an immense system, I cannot even imagine!

[amphipod06]

"Would you like cave diving as much if the caves were well lit?"

seriously?

Dive safe,

Celia

[DA Aquamaster]

And then there's video and photography! How amazing is that Diepolder picture by Wes Skiles... How much light was needed to get such a picture in such an immense system, I cannot even imagine!

From what I've heard, that shot was made with very large slaved strobes. Providing that much light for the whole dive would require some serious battery power.

[Bobby]

Back when Halogen was the top light for diving we had the watt wars with limited burn times. I was using 35w and it seemed to be plenty of light and a good balance of battery size to burn time. Dive planning came down to how man back ups would be carried to cover the entire dive. Back up lights were not very dependable and I can recall a number of exits with no light.

Then came the 10w HID. I like many others complained that the light was "too bright", "too white", etc. Eventually I converted and found how much more of the cave I could see with the HID. Then came the 21w and the same thing was said about it; too bright, too much light, yada yada yada. Then the 35w & 50w lights came along. I stayed with the 10w HID because of the size of the light head and battery can.

Now there are LED's. With the same 10w HID head I have more light than a 35w HID with the dependability of LED. Each time I up the light output I think it is too much light until I get the beam angle to match it. With more than 2600 lumen of output I still think that is "the most light I would want" but will undoubtedly be happy with more light the next time I upgrade, which won't be too long with how quickly LED technology improves.

Check out this video , tell me where there is too much light.

[RN]

From what I've heard, that shot was made with very large slaved strobes. Providing that much light for the whole dive would require some serious battery power.

Another tidbit of information. I heard the divers in that shot are all Wes. He set up the camera and left the shutter open while moving to each position in the dark and turning on the strobe he was holding when he got there. I've played around with that on land and it works quite well.

[DA Aquamaster]

Another tidbit of information. I heard the divers in that shot are all Wes. He set up the camera and left the shutter open while moving to each position in the dark and turning on the strobe he was holding when he got there. I've played around with that on land and it works quite well.

Now that's pretty cool....

I have done something vaugely similar taking astonomical photos with my 6" refractor "stacking" several medium length exposures on one digital image to avoid the electronic noise that occurs in a single long digital exposure.

[Greenwood_60]

From what I've heard, that shot was made with very large slaved strobes. Providing that much light for the whole dive would require some serious battery power.

That strobe was built for Nat Geo to do a titanic shoot. I guess those they were scared a strobe failure would kill them, so they didn't take it. Wes asked to borrow it, and made one hell of a photo.

[amphipod06]

The lights were referred to as "the great balls of fire"(GBF's) and the Russian (not sure of nationality) crew declined to use them because it scared them. An accidental flash directly in the eyes or a short circuit of 60,000 volts from flooding can potentially cause devastating results. Wes saw a huge opportunity and borrowed them. The Diepolder image took more than one dive to produce and the fact that it was done on actual film media makes it even more impressive....

Dive safe,

Celia