The second night at Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon I got another opportunity to see some more Aurora Borealis over the Vatnajökull Glacier, twice in a row after no clear nights on the rest of the trip. This evening I had moved around and set up camp on the side of the Glacier Lake to get a different perspective and I was completely by myself in the erie silence, not even a breath of wind. It was almost a religious experience!
Both these images shot on the Sony A7-r and the Canon 24mm f1.4L lens & lens adaptor. I experimented a bit with exposure and found that on that camera ISO 800 was preferable at about f2.8 and 10-15 seconds exposure… But I had a nearly full moon to light the Glacier and the Icebergs. On a moonless night you will need much more exposure to get the scene visible and not just the Northern Lights in the sky. ISO 1250 allowed me more depth of Field at f4 or even f5.6, but it was too noisy, especially in the reflections.
Iceland Photo Tour August 2015.
I’m getting closer to having al the details finalised for my Photographic tour to Iceland in August 2015, I’m hoping to have all details up and be accepting bookings in a week or so. I will be running this tour with well known Icelandic photographer Iurie Belegurschi (more about him later) so will be increasing the numbers slightly to a maximum of 12 people. I already have several people on the waiting list for this tour, If you would like to be on it to click HERE to go to the page to send me an email.
I had hoped to see some Northern Lights during my trip to Iceland, but by evening 7 of my 10 day trip I had only a couple of clear nights and no Northern Lights. I had a full moon by the second day, so I began to think that I probably wouldn’t see the Aurora Borealis with the bright light of the full moon… Until the second last night when I arrived at Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon, at about 9pm (after many hours of driving).
When I pulled up there was a line of tripods set up in the carpark with a whole bunch of excited photographers buzzing around. The sky was clear, the moon was out and it looked like this…
Apparently it had begun only a couple of minutes before I got there, full moon and all. So you can see the Aurora Borealis with a full moon, and the great thing is that the moon lights up the landscape beautifully. The 2 photographers on the skyline of the hill on the right side add a nice perspective and the Vatnajökull Glacier is visible glowing in the background.
Click on one of the above images, and then click on the right or left side of the image to scroll through each of the bigger versions, and you will see how the lights move in the sky. The images change brightness due to slightly different exposures (I was experimenting) and clouds moving across obscuring the moon. These images were shot on the Sony A7-r and a canon 24mm f1.4L lens (with an adaptor). There was not enough light for the Hasselblad H4D-60 as it has a CCD sensor (not great in low light), Hasselblad wouldn’t lend me the new H5D-50C with the CMOS sensor…
I think I need to put some Ice in Iceland, so far all my Iceland images have been showing verdant green, but no Ice. Yes there is ice in Iceland, and in fact Iceland is home to some of Europe’s biggest glaciers and they cover about 11% of Iceland’s land area.
Often glaciers form lakes and at their foot as the glacier melts… No, that can’t be right, Tony Abbott says global warming is a myth, the glaciers are not melting!
Vatnajökull Glacier
Jokulsarlon is particularly beautiful glacier lake at the foot of the Vatnajökull Glacier on the South coast of Iceland. And first thing in the morning, it looks like this…
This image shot at dawn on the Hasselblad H4D-60 and the 100mm f2.2
Still avoiding waterfalls for now, I thought I would post some more shots from the side of the road on my road trip around Iceland. This one shot just a few minutes before the previous post “Epic Icelandic Landscape with Church” as I was descending out of the hills and the Eastern Fjords of Iceland onto the South Coast region.
The mountains in the Eastern Fjord region are stunning, at least the bits I could see. But as I had been driving through pea soup dense fog for about 40 minutes I was missing most of it. To make it even more fun it was an amazingly windy road. As I descended out of the mountains the mist cleared giving me a spectacular view over a primordial landscape of mountains, mossy lava fields and boiling skies… That is not this photo.
Unfortunately some idiot in an F250 truck was trying to shove his bumper up my exhaust pipe at this stage and there was nowhere to stop, so I had to wait until I was at the bottom of the very steep descent where the overly hormoned driver could pass me and I could pull over. So same valley, just a different viewpoint. I’ll get the other viewpoint next time, which will be next August 2015.
Image shot with the Hasselblad H4D-60 and 50mm f3.4 lens.
Looking back on the last few posts of Iceland it looks like Iceland is just a land of waterfalls. Not that that’s bad, but it’s only a fraction of the story… I do have many more shots of waterfalls to go yet! So just for a change, here is a shot without a waterfall visible. Instead I have a tiny Icelandic Church, and a whole bunch of mountains. I love these wild cloudy skies, so much more spectacular than endless blue. Some days in Iceland the cloudy skies were so amazing I went out and just took photos of clouds… Just clouds.
Click on the image to get a bigger version and see the church… or you can look at the zoomed crop below. There are advantages to having 60 Mega pixels to play with.
This image was shot on the Hasselblad H4D-60 with the 100mm f2.2 lens.
Land of Ice and Fire Photographic Tour 2015
If you would like to see Iceland up close and personal, I am running a photographic tour there next year for 10 days beginning August 25th. I’m still working out the final details of the itinerary and costings, but all the details will be on my Iceland Photo Tour Page as soon as it’s all finalised. From that page you can also send me a quick email if you would like to go on the mailing list for early warning.
Godafoss waterfall in Iceland is a pretty special place, so I stayed there for a sunset and a sunrise and shot it from both sides. At least somewhere above the clouds there was a sunset and a sunrise. Fortunately overcast light works really well for waterfalls, so although it seems like it I am not really complaining. The clouds were beautifully defined with lots of great heavy texture, I even got some colour in the clouds above the falls for this shot. This is pretty much the raw capture with a few minutes of tweaking in Lightroom, mostly just contrast and white balance. I think this one will come up nicely with a little bit of digital magic.
To shoot images of Godafoss waterfall you can choose from both sides of the falls, and many different High and low perspectives. This is the low down perspective shot right on the water level. There was water spray everywhere, so it was wipe and shoot again.
Shot on the Hasselblad H4D-60 with the 28mm lens. Don’t forget to click on the image to get a bigger version.
A different angle of the Godafoss, the waterfall of the Gods. When a waterfall has such a massive volume of water going over it there is always a lot of spray, almost everywhere, and seemingly especially where you want to be for the shot. There is nothing like drops of water all over your lens to ruin your shots, and if you don’t see it until the evening when you are downloading your images it can ruin your whole day. You quickly develop a little ritual, check exposure, frame the shot, check the focus, mirror up… wipe the lens carefully, then quickly take the shot… repeat until you have one that is droplet free.
Oh yeah, don’t fall in!
Godafoss or rather Goðafoss, as it is correctly spelled in Icelandic is the waterfall of the Gods, or the waterfall of the big chief… depending on how its translated, I’m told. I’m not speaking much Icelandic at this stage, though I am working on it…
Legend has it that about 1000 years ago the head of the Norse community in Iceland, the Lawspeaker, after converting to Christianity, threw the statues of the Nordic Gods into the river from the top of the Falls, at least that’s how the story goes. Either way, it is one of the most spectacular places I’ve yet been, and somehow the waterfall of the Gods is a fitting name.
This shot was just after a very grey dawn with lots of spray finding the lens of the camera. There was lots of wiping in between shots, and the camera had a rain jacket on. Its shot on the Hasselblad H4d-60 with the 28mm lens.
Photo Tour of Iceland 2015.
I have dates for the first Photographic Tour of Iceland for 2015, we will be in Iceland from August 25th until September 3rd 2015. I don’t have all the details yet, a few things like price we are still working out, but for the latest you just need to keep watching the Blog, or go to the Iceland Photo Tour Page.
I didn’t think I had time to visit Litlanesfoss waterfall on this trip, but the road had other ideas. I was following highway 1 around Iceland, making detours at various places to get to spectacular spots. In this case though I had continued on straight thinking I was on highway 1, but at some intersection highway 1 had turned right and the road that continued straight on had become another road… even though it looked exactly the same and there was only a small sign to indicate otherwise. Seems I was meant to come here.
It was grey, windy and occasionally raining, so perfect weather for waterfalls really. The overcast conditions and wet rocks all conspired to bring out the colour in the stone and the ubiquitous green of the stunning Iceland moss. Yes, it really is this colour!
Image shot on the Hasselblad H4D-60 with the 50mm f4 lens
Actually on the way out of Pinvellir National Park in West Iceland, shot from the side of the road. Mountains are such a novelty to me that after the first couple of days of travelling around Iceland in my camper van I concluded that at the rate I was going, or rather my frequency of stopping, it would take me about 2 months to get back for my return flight to Europe…
The scenery was so spectacular that I was stopping every few minutes and hiking off into the fields and ravines either side of the road. Since I had only given myself 10 days this clearly wasn’t going to work. After that realisation I set myself a final destination each day where I would want to be for sunset and then try to budget my stops to only those that were truly spectacular… Trouble is, all of Iceland is truly spectacular. Next time I think I allow more time!
This image is yet another un budgeted stop when the combination of the stream, the mountains and the light just could not be ignored. This was on the way out of Pinvellir National Park West Iceland, where I had spent the whole day saying “wow!” a lot.
