The last morning of my 10 day Iceland trip I had put aside for the black sand Ice beach at Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon in the Vatnajökull National Park, in Southern Iceland. It had been clear the day before (and I got the Northern Lights the night before), but on the last morning there was no actual sunrise, the dawning of the day was heralded only by a lightening of the shades of grey in the sky. So I stayed in bed in my camper van, being utterly exhausted after 10 days of chasing light. I got up around 8am, which was a huge sleep in, had a leisurely cup of tea, then wandered down to the beach where everything had brightened up considerably, and there was even a little late colour in the sky. Sometimes sleeping in pays off.
The icebergs that break off the Vatnajökull Glacier into the lagoon slowly make their way down the outlet to the sea. Many of the bigger icebergs get jammed in the shallow channel, and then get pushed back in again with the tide, and so go back and forth a couple of times daily until they melt enough to float freely out to sea. Even then their trial is not over, as many of them get washed up on the volcanic black sand beach either side of the outlet, at least for a while. There were some huge icebergs there the day before, high and dry and looking like they would never move, the next day they were gone to be replaced by others.
Date Change for Iceland Photo Tour 2015.
We have had a slight date change for next years photographic tour of Iceland. Rather than beginning August 25th as originally planned, we are now booked for August 19th – August 30th 2015. We had a hotel booking conflict that was easier to resolve by changing dates, so thats what we have done. I have all the info now, itinerary, dates, costings ect… Now I just have to write the web page…
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…
