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New Zealand Glow Worm cave trip with Glowing Adventures

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Glowing Adventures are the only cave tour in Waitomo that will let you take a tripod and camera into a glow worm cave that I could find. https://www.glowing.co.nz/photography-tours/ These are private tours for up to 6 people and must be booked well in advance as there are only a couple of slots a day.
On their photography tours, you are allowed to take your big cameras and a tripod in. As such, the parts of caves you are taken into are more open. If you want a more "caving" experience and are OK with a tight squeeze or two, they allow small, point and shoot, cameras to be taken on their other tour. Its a small family business, so you are not tagged and bagged like you are on the bigger tours. It was the highlight of our trip.

All clothing and caving gear is provided.

Photography Tips

Think astro photography and get very familiar with your gear. You have a head touch on, but the caves are pitch black. The cave opening shown in the glow worm shots was barely visible to the naked eye.
Use a tripod, a fast wide lens and shoot in RAW. These were taken on a 20mm f1.8 on a full frame camera, but have been cropped a little bit.
Focusing is the hardest part. In astro photography you can get away with f1.8 at infinity. In a cave, the distances are much closer and f1.8 is a pretty narrow band to hit in the dark, even zooming in in live view.
Start at ISO 6400, f2.8 and a minute exposure and work from there, try and get the ISO lower if you can. The glow worms do move a little in the wind, so what you gain in improved noise by lowering your ISO, you may lose in subject movement with the longer exposures. Some of these were exposures over a minute.
The screen on your camera will appear brighter once your eyes adjust to the lack of light, as a result, all my shots were under exposed a stop or two but looked OK in the cave. Use a cable release or put the self timer on so you are not touching the camera when the shutter opens.
Water will drop from the cave roof, so be OK with the fact that your gear make get a few drops on, not significant, but possible.

Travel Information

Follow the instructions emailed by the tour company, It is about a 30 minute drive from the main Waitomo village. Being self assured on your feet is a must as you are climbing over wet rocks, walking up and down a lot of stairs and walking through a creek in gumboots.
Spot Type Outdoor
Crowd Factor Nearly no other people
Best Timing All timings are equally good
Sunrise & Sunset 06:05 - 20:01 | current local time: 19:52
Photo Themes Cave Glow Worm
Locations Waitomo

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Spot Comments (3)

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Rr Rr
Rr Rr 23.09.
Thanks a lot for the valauble information here!!! Appreciated mate!
Edward
Edward 25.12.2019
Really impressive. I wasted rolls of expensive film trying to shoot glow worms. I'll add this place to my list for next time I'm in Godzone.
Peter Luxem
Peter Luxem 24.12.2019
Good information on this spot, this makes this site great.

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Thank you Graeme Partridge for creating this photo spot in New Zealand.
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