Slot Canyon

nomore · Sep 22, 2006

I went to a slot canyon today. I took about 100 photos, I've only just started going through them, but here's a small selection.

It's quite a difficult shooting envorinment. The light areas near the sky are ahout 10 stops brighter than the dark sections near the floor. I did some bracketed shots in the hope of making some HDR images.

Anyway, these are single shots that I can show for now.

Comments appreciated.

zombiekilla · Sep 22, 2006

There georgous!!!! :drool:

TBaraki · Sep 22, 2006

Wow. Beautiful.

shoedumas · Sep 22, 2006

Amazing. You did well providing the described ligthing situations.

abraxas · Sep 22, 2006

Excellent series!

photo gal · Sep 22, 2006

These are wonderful!! : )

JTHphoto · Sep 22, 2006

amazing... where were these? are there slot canyons like these in more than one place? There are some in northern arizona that i want to go to soooooo bad. it sounds like a pain though, did you have to have a guide?

do you mind sharing any of your techniques? tripod, filters? exif? these are fantastic, especially the first 3. I am going to make it a point to get up there in the next year or so...

nomore · Sep 22, 2006

JTHphoto said:
amazing... where were these? are there slot canyons like these in more than one place? There are some in northern arizona that i want to go to soooooo bad. it sounds like a pain though, did you have to have a guide?

do you mind sharing any of your techniques? tripod, filters? exif? these are fantastic, especially the first 3. I am going to make it a point to get up there in the next year or so...

These were at the Upper Antelope Canyon near Page in Arizona. We had a Navajo guide on a "Photographer's Tour". You can't go there without a guide.

At times there were far too many people/tourists being shown around. I started off at ISO 100 and exposures were 25-30 seconds long, but people kept walking into the shots. I upped it to ISO 400 which worked better. I used an aperture of f/22 to start with, but again the exposure times were too long, so I lowered it fo f/11, which seems to have still kept a good depth of field.

I try to meter from the middle tones, but trying to keep some of the highlights from blowing out is tough. I did some bracketed exposures at the areas where the light and dark is to far apart for the CMOS sensor in the hope that I can combine them into an HDR image.

The only filter I used was a UV to keep the dust off the lens. It gets very dusty, so you need an air-blower. I would not recommend changing lenses in the canyon. I used a 17-40mm and it was pretty much perfect for every shot, so one lens should be enough.

Our tour guide was good at clearing the area of tourists for us to get photos and he also knew when the light beams would appear and where they would be. He also pointed out quite a few great locations for photos that were not immediately obvious.

The main problem is the tourists and their P&S cameras... When you're in the middle of a 15 second exposure, then they go and take a photo using the flash, it can obviousbly flatten ouf the tones. Luckily, it didn't effect my photos too much.

mentos_007 · Sep 22, 2006

oh my God! I didn't know such things exist !!! beautiful photos! I love the light rays inside...

JTHphoto · Sep 22, 2006

Thanks for sharing all the info, that's pretty much what I have heard from all my other research on the canyons. Sounds like you had a pretty good guide though, i'll have to remember about the "photographer's tour".

I want that 17-40 lens... :drool:

I can't wait to see how your HDRs turn out...

again, wonderful shots :thumbup:

oCyrus55 · Sep 22, 2006

O my goodness, these are awsome!

D-50 · Sep 22, 2006

Amazing photos I love the lighting on them but think number one would be interesting to see with the ray the same brighness but the rocks a bit darker, make it look like a dark canyon with a bright ray of light cutting through it.

Jeff Canes · Sep 22, 2006

Very nice, did you need to get a Navajo photo permit? I hear they can cost over $50 depending on the camera type and how you plan to use the photos

nomore · Sep 23, 2006

Jeff Canes said:
Very nice, did you need to get a Navajo photo permit? I hear they can cost over $50 depending on the camera type and how you plan to use the photos

You need a photo permit if you're going to be shooting commercially, but the tour cost $35 per person plus tax and entry to the canyon. It cost us $90.77 in total for two people.