Damn I hate when the technical side of photography gets in the way of taking a shot. I have had a few goes at editing this panorama and it a real challenge, much more that the usual drama of a scene with really dark and really bright areas. I suppose doing it on an overcast day and in the morning or evening would certainly help – prolly help with the crowds too 🙂 although great see so many people out enjoying thee natural wonder of SE QLD.

I have seen some really nice images of this place over the years and during a recent visit to northern NSW we decided to drive and have a squiz.

I reckon they may have had problems with people swimming and jumping the fence here, I don't think I have seen a tourist place with soooo many signs saying no swimming and keep to the track 🙂 I think one of the main reasons is the colony of bats in the cave, which both tickles and chaos were very excited to see, even if it was in the dark at the end of the cave and they barely visible. The cave is surprisingly large and, thankyou mother nature, rather tall, no loss of brain cells for me that day 🙂

This image is probably about a 160 degree field of view and about 3 quarters of the entire cave. The panorama is made up of 5 frames (landscape orientation) with each frame bracketed, this way there is some hope of capturing both the really dark parks of the cave and the really bright outside and falls, which were in full sun. Editing was a real challenge to try and get that natural blend from light to dark and not get left with a flat HDR's style image, this is my third crack at the shot from here, i have a few others of varying composition, but i think I will leave those for a rainy day 🙂

D750 with Nikkor 17-35 f2.8 @ 26mm
Shutter speed: 1s (normal exp), 8s (over exposed) and 1/8s (under exposed)
Aperture: f/8
ISO 100