Sygun Copper Mine

It was a dull and drizzly start to the day so I decided to find an indoor activity to do. I had heard about the Sygun Copper Mine near Beddgelert so thought I would try that. When I got there, there wasn't anyone else around. I am used to having beaches to myself but I am starting to take this personally!

Anyway, what it did mean was that I had plenty of time going round to set up the camera and tripod. 

You start off by going through what seems like miles of tunnels about 5ft high. OK maybe slight exaggeration, but I am over 5'8 plus an extra 2" with the hard hat they make you wear, and I spent all the time ducking!

It is very dark down there and so you definitely need a tripod. Auto focus was not good in these conditions so I had to shine my torch on a spot and manual focus on to it using Live View and my reading glasses so that I could actually see what I was focusing. Oh the joys of getting on a bit!

The shutter speeds were averaging around 4-5 seconds, so I had the camera on a 2 second delay to try to minimize any camera shake and I think that all in all they worked out ok.

The tunnels took me to a couple of small cavern areas where one can admire the stalactites. But unfortunately these had railings in front of them, so you couldn't get close and I had to position the camera to shoot between the rails.

I didn't have to do very much to these pics in the way of editing as the colours were very vibrant and clear.

So that was basically it for the mine, apart from the 186 steps taking you back up to the top.

Lessons Learned: Duck!!!!