Best Aurora Lens - Iceland Trip

[Minerve101]

Wouldn't stress about the "ones that got away" when you captured scenes like these. Lots of visual horsepower in these images! Thanks for posting them.

Danny

[Kayaker72]

Day 3 - "South Iceland" Main town you'll see is Vik. But there are a number of waterfalls to the west of Vik including the famous Skogafoss and Seljalandsfoss. In the summer, there are some great bird sanctuaries (puffins, etc). Also, some seastacks that I didn't really bother photographing due to crowds.

Skogafoss:

I think this was actually a guide for a photo tour group, but, the "classic" shot from Skogafoss. I asked my wife if she wanted to pose for me and she looked at me like I was nuts for suggesting she get closer to the waterfall.

Church overlooking Vik. This style of church was everywhere. If someone wanted, there could be a great series of images of churches like this from all over Iceland. Interestingly, I am pretty sure I saw some of these on farms. So a few farm owners built their own churches.

Seljalandsfoss. Famous for its images from behind the waterfall, that is close right now due to ice.

Gljufrabuifoss. Looking at this and comparing it to other images, I should have gone to my 16-35 lens and shot wider than 24 mm. Granted, it was crowded with everyone wanting to jump on that rock for a selfie. I had to wait in between groups to fire off a few images. But, this is in a little cave. Great experience. 0.5 Km up a flat trail from Seljulandsfoss.

[Kayaker72]

Day 4 is the day where we were scheduled to to an ice cave tour. The plan was also to see Diamond beach, scout it before the tour, then really set up on it after the tour with, hopefully, better light.

As it stands, I had about 20 minutes at Diamond Beach, scuttled the tour and the second photo shoot at Diamond beach wanting to get back to the hotel before the storm hit and plans to go back someday.

Diamond Beach is where the icebergs from Jokulsarlon glacier lagoon flow to the ocean and then get washed up on the beach slowly melting.

My processing is getting a bit heavy here as the light was directly overhead (taken around noon), you could see some crystal clear bergs (diamonds) and some that were powerfully blue.

Noticing all the wave action in the back, I should caution that Iceland warns about rogue waves (they call them sneaker waves) at their beaches. There are a number of drownings each year. At Diamond beach I watched the wave action before getting close, so I had a good idea where they were coming in at, and stayed away from this (more scouting shots)….but even with that, a single large wave did blast in, lift the icebergs up and send them back toward me. Where I had been on dry land, I ended up knee deep in water jumping between icebergs that were starting to float. Everything was fine (even the camera)...but it is pretty easy to see how it could have end differently....so, watch those sneaker waves while on the beaches of Iceland.

So, conceding that this is a flawed image (water drops on the front filter, but it was raining--my wife got a better image on her phone from inside the car), just an example of the landscape in Southeast Iceland.

Finally...roadside waterfall....

Ok...done.

Thanks for viewing and staying with me.... I hope this gives you a flavor of the different regions of Iceland I saw....and really I only covered less than half the ring road (Snaefellsnes Peninsula to Jokulsarlon). Lots more to see for someday.

Brant