Through the Lens

This weekend's trip was to Inks Lake and Longhorn Cavern. These 2 places are about 65 miles northwest of Austin, around the town called Burnet. The Drive through Texas Hill Country was excellent and we were able to reach the spots at 8, which is when the park office opens. It was already bright and I went straight to Devil's waterhole, the farthest point in Ink's lake. There is a trail that takes you to a small waterfall and the lake. Ink's lake is more of a campsite than a nature park. The Lake was fantastic and it was swarmed with tourists. That is always a bad thing as far as photography is concerned. When we reached the falls, around 8.30-9 AM, it was already very very bright. It is simply not possible to catch the early shots in this park, unless you camp overnight.
I did a blunder that killed almost all my shots. I did not set the ISO to a proper setting. I simply overlooked that setting and it was set at 800. A ISO 800 shot on a bright sunny day is simply begging for over exposure. And that is what happened exactly.

Rule:
Before you even click your first shot in each location, go through all the settings in your camera. That was a really amateur mistake, one that I will definitely not repeat.

From Inks Lake, we came to longhorn cavern. I was really looking forward shooting with tripods and to my utter surprise, No tripods allowed. Yup. It is an underground cave with minimal lighting but NO TRIPODS. The reason that the tour guide gave was that setting up a tripod for shots will take a long time and thus, will only delay the hourly guided tour they offer. A valid reason, although it just killed my enthusiasm. The tour did not have any surprises. It did feel really really long and monotonous. The best part was when the guide turned off the lights for a minute, just to show us how dark it really is inside an underground cave. It was pitch black. My eyes would not adjust to the darkness as there was absolutely no light inside. While coming out, I found out that they do allow photographic tours and I can schedule one in advance. Maybe next time.

Oh another thing, the rookie mistake that I did with the ISO settings actually helped me in the cavern. :)


Flickr page for this set




PS: The 2 metal things that you see in one of the pictures, is the light switch they had in the cave. It is structured that way to prevent water from entering from the top

PS2: The picture with the butterfly and the flower was clicked on the spur of the moment and I did not have time to compose the image. The Composition can be a lot better on that one but it is a cool moment though.