Of anything I photographed in 2019 these critters were by far the most difficult…

In January I was invited by the Fiordland Camera Club to photograph the glow worms of Real Journey’s Te Anau Cave. This was a rare opportunity as photography in the cave is usually forbidden and staying overnight is also prohibited due to the area being a breeding ground for rare Takahe.

Glow worms in the Te Anau Cave, Fiordland.

To the naked eye it feels as if you’re under a sea of stars, so naturally I dialed my default astro settings into the camera and tried to take a shot… pure black. These guys are far dimmer than they seem, and are testament to how well our eyes adapt to extreme darkness.

Shots like the one below took upwards of four minutes for a single exposure using some extreme settings. I had the ISO bumped up to 3200, and the f/stop at 2.0 on a Lumix GH5s - a specialist low light camera by Panasonic (using a Leica 12mm 1.4 lens)

Like a sea of stars - Glow Worms in Te Anau

In September 2019 I returned to take some time-lapses and still shots for Real Journey’s PR department.
The video at the top of the post is one of these. You can even see two glow worms fighting over territory at the 10 second mark!

That video was shot on new equipment using the Lumix S1H, still in pre-production at the time of shooting, and the Lumix S Pro 50mm 1.4. The video takes place over 2 hours and show how dynamic these creatures really are.

It was shot using a Syrp genie II linear and their wonderful carbon fiber slider (so light!). You can see a behind-the-scenes here: