Den of Nargun - Very Low Light Shoot

My New Years resolution has been to move outside comfort zone in Photography:-
So far I have:-
1. Tried a hear of water droplet projects (two hot days spent in air conditioned comfort!)
2. Today went to the Den of Nargun solely for photography and it was great!

Basically a friend Brent, and his mate and I all went up the Dargo road talking about cycling and ended up at Den of Nargun looking like major tourists with cameras in hand!! Now I just wanted to get some nice pics, Brent was testing out his macro lens and his friend Sheldon studies Botany and so took a major interest in just about any plant and weed that crossed our path. So we walked for about 3 hours stopping and photographing along the way.

My main test was to try and manage the dark surroundings, I was shooting in RAW but found on my 15-85mm lens, the lowest aperture of 4 was pushed along with slowish shutter speeds and I even at one time bumped up ISO to 500 (and forgot to change it back).

This is the Den of Nargun, Quite Beautiful really

 Luckily I had all my camera gear in my backpack as it was a very rocky walk and very unsteady so for the safety of my camera I used  the bag. This Den of Nargun shot was taken at 1/100 at f3.5 at ISO250 then I bumped up xposure in Lightroom by 1 fstop. You can also see the sky was grey aka as a whiteout so I left very little sky in the image!

I wanted to get more than the usual bochure style images. There were lots of stalactite type formations on the walls and lots of cobwebs

This was sticks and rocks although looks like more of an x-file!

I actually put a sepia type finish on this one as it made it look creepier and the white berries at the front look like little lights or something...........creepy.........

This was a really good pathway. It was either flat path, steps, or clamber over rocks!

See the path - EXACTLY - I COULDN'T SEE IT EITHER...Just clumsily climb over rocks. The Sign that reads "Den of Nargun 15 minutes" is obviously written for mountain goats or contortionists.....well not me anyways!

More paths with lots of greenery and plants and botanists stop more often than my dog on a walk (but for different reasons!)

Another reasonably good pathway

I got the plant bug and tried some MACRO, buit my 15-85 is not a MACRO specific lens, but can come up with the goods when it has too

My favorite image of the day. I was rapt as the eyes were in focus and not just the wings

Look everywhere as there is interesting colors and textures everywhere!

I tried the very slow shutter speed with no tripod and this effort was ok, SS was 1/10th

Seriously some of the "path" was a case of looking and walking toward the sound of water running, there were rockas and little of anything that formed a path of any form

I am excited as I am taking pics at  Lakes Entrance over the weekend and then off to Adelaide for more cycling at the Tour Downunder.......will be fantastic.