Another one from last friday night. You would think you couldn't take a bad photo of the northern lights, you would think wrong. I have tons of horrible pictures of northern lights, I even have two of them with shooting stars clearly visible! Anyway, some tips for shooting the northern lights if you have them in your area:

1) Warm clothes, I mean it!
2) Tripod.
3) Brightest & widest lens you have.
4) Never go beyond 30seconds to avoid: a) startrail b) blurry smudgy northern lights. The shorter exposure time the better.
5) Highest ISO you and your camera can live with.

Zeiss F-Distagon 2.8/16 (Rollei QBM mount adapted to EF) - 15 seconds@f/2.8 , ISO3200 (distortion corrected)

PS. More aurora pics...

Tags:   northern lights aurora borealis norðurljós iceland ísland hvalfjörður road grass stars starry night green glowing Canon EOS 5D Mark II F-Distagon HFT 2.8/16 Zeiss Zeiss F-Distagon HFT 2.8/16 ZEISSContest2010 Landscape HFT ZE Carl Zeiss QBM Rollei adapted

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A little and very temporary icecave at the entrance of Sólheimajökull glacier. The glaciers are constantly on the move so this scene might not be there tomorrow, at least not in the same proportions. If you look closely you can see layers of ash / sand in the ice, notice how they're tilted diagonally, but propably they were horizontal when the ash / sand landed on the ice.

This shot is made out of three horizontal sets of 3 exposures each, a total of 9 frames blended into one, wide photo with increased dynamic range. Original photo is close to 10.000 pixels wide.

Tags:   Icecave cave ice glacier Sólheimajökull Solheimajokull Iceland Ísland blue frozen sand gray Canon EOS 5D Mark III Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L 17mm TS-E stitched panorama HDR fusion

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From the mountain top right before it fogged up completely. This is almost 380m above sea level and in the distance you can see the mountain Keilir, a mountain I photograph almost every day from the other side, where I live. Like the previous uploads, this is a 3 frame vertical stitch cropped to 2:1 leaving me with a 29 megapixel überimage.

Tags:   Sogin Reykjanes Iceland Ísland Sunset Keilir hot geothermal area grass green blue Canon EOS 5D Mark III Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II Lee Filters 105mm polarizer Singh-Ray 0.9 Reverse Grad

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I took this photo with an old friend I re-aquired tonight, the Canon EF 300mm f/4L IS. I bartered my GF1 m43 system for the lens, after only about a month of use. The m43 camera was great fun to use the first few days but then later the "pure digital" feeling of using a mirrorless camera got to me, I felt no joy snapping photos with it in the end, so there is no regret. Let me remind you that I am equally a gearslut and a photographer 8-)

I just realized it's more than a month now between photo-uploads, but risking sounding like a broken record: work is killing me. I'm thinking my next new years resolution should say, less work, more photo.

Tags:   Viðey Videy Imagine Peace Tower Imagine Peace Tower snowy snow mountains Iceland Ísland ocean island winter 2011 Canon EOS 5D Mark II Canon EF 300mm f/4L IS USM night

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This is from the Arnarstapi harbour in Snæfellsnes, west of Iceland. It's 3 exposures blended together for increased dynamic range, but what's more interesting (to us gearheads anyway) is that this photo was taken with a 2x III extender on a 17mm lens, giving me a 34mm f/8 to work with :-) I took a few more pictures during this trip but don't intend on posting them here on Flickr, but if you're interested, you can see them here:
www.islenskljosmyndun.is/index.php?topic=2507

Tags:   Arnarstapi Snæfellsnes Ísland Iceland harbour night fog house reflection ocean rocks cliffs weather blue Canon EOS 5D Mark III Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L Canon EF 2x III Extender

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