Icelandic Northern Lights

Well I'm back from a few fun filled days with photography friends in Iceland, and I thought I'd share some of the things we learned.  Firstly though, please bear in mind that we went in the first week of Feb, so some of this may not be relevant to other times of the year.

Getting about.

As time was short, we'd never been before and there was lots we wanted to do, getting about was essential.  We booked then cancelled, a days tour of "the Golden Circle".  Why did we cancel, well, cost.  Everything generally seems expensive in Iceland, but the tour was 32,000. Isk per person.  Which in GBP is about £166 EACH!! So nearly six hundred pounds for the three of us for one day’s entertainment.  We decided to hire a car for 3 days, at a cost of 11,000 ISK a day (after haggling, yes you can haggle!) so we were mobile for three days, for slightly more than the cost of one of us doing the official tour! 

The added advantage of having a car was being able to stop whenever we wanted to take photos.  Of course it meant getting to grips with navigation etc but if you've driven abroad before you should have no problems.  One tip though, make sure your car has studded tyres to cope with snowy and icy roads. A 4x4 is best but not essential unless conditions are bad, and you can hire an older vehicle at lower cost if you shop about. 

We visited the Blue Lagoon, the Geysir, the Grundfoss waterfall and Pydinvittal. One big respect mark to Iceland is that these "attractions" have not been roped off and you don't have to pay an admission fee to see them, we thought this was great.  Though to take a dip in the spa side of the Blue Lagoon is an extra cost.

Our abandoned 4x4 hire car as we've leapt out to take some pictures!

The Northern Lights

We did one excursion to the northern lights (it was part of our deal  http://www.icelandair.co.uk/offers-and-bookings/book-packages/package/item201439/ ), and amazingly we were successful.  The hotels display a notice in their reception areas in the late afternoon to say if the trips are running or not.  This seems to be based on likely cloud cover.  If it’s going to be cloudy, they cancel.  If it’s not cloudy, a coach will collect you from the hotel (around 20:00 on wards) and take you to the bus station where all the northern lights excursion buses congregate and tickets are checked. 

If your trip is cancelled, you can go the next night it is running at no extra cost, assuming that you are still there! 

The coaches appear to set off into different areas and a tour guide will give over some general information about the lights, galaxies, the universe and everything.  Hopefully yours won’t think he’s a comedian like ours did.  You’ll then after an hour or so end up in a layby, with three or so other coaches, where you’ll disembark to watch the skies.  

Three coaches and lots of people waiting in anticipation, we didn't know it but the Northern Lights were already there as a faint green band just under cloud (if you squint hard enough), only the longe exposure makes it visible.

If you’re lucky you’ll have a cloudless night and then it’s just a matter of waiting and scanning skies.  If the clouds roll in, then unluckily you stand no chance of seeing the lights, even with a clear sky it’s not guaranteed.  It can be bitterly cold so make sure you have warm gear as you may be out there for two hours or so, though you can get back on the bus if you get too cold (make sure it’s the right bus!).  Photographywise, a tripod and wide lens are the order of the day, as is a remote or timer shutter release.  We experimented a bit, going from 30 second exposures to about 4 seconds, adjusting ISO accordingly (aperture was as wide as we could go).  The longer exposures had blurrier clouds and lights and the shorter exposures had more definition as you’d expect, but with far greater sensor noise from the high ISO’s used.  If we’d had more time I’m sure we would have arrived at a better compromise. 

Compositionally, well standing in a layby, in the middle of a wide open snow covered valley does not give too many options, and with so many people milling about it’s hard to get a shot without a torch, flash, cigarette lighter etc in it! 

Talk about light pollution! The orange cloud is light reflecting from ReykJavik.

Our first view of the Lights was an easily overlooked and very unimpressive grey band of cloud.  It was only when we took a picture of it that its green colour was revealed.  We were just wondering if the Lights had been overhyped when there was a great cheer, much clapping and many ooh’s and ah’s as the sky lit up with a long waving green veil almost right across the horizon.  We clicked away and took our pictures and then sat back to soak it all in. 



At last (who are those people, don't they know I'm taking pictures!)

A while later, you are all herded back on the bus and returned to your hotel for about half past midnight, but don’t worry about getting up early, it doesn’t get light until about 10:30 in the morning at that time of the year. 

We tried to see the lights again and our receptionist asked the coach driver where he was heading off to so we could drive there too.  It was a very clear night so things looked good, but the clouds rolled in and soon enough we spotted a convoy of 8 coaches heading back to base.  So we did too. 

The best advice I can give is if you want to see the Lights, and have only a few days over there, if the coaches are running, go out into the hills and watch.  They are a natural phenomenon and there are no guarantees, so don’t miss an opportunity like a party of six did, that went out for “a nice meal” on the only night of their six night stay that the lights were visible.

Wildlife,

For us, seeing the Lights was the purpose of the trip, anything else was a bonus.  So my birder friend was chuffed to be photographing Long Tailed Ducks near the harbour, and Merganser’s and Whooper swans on a frozen lake in the city as well as Fulmars and Gannets on our Whale watching trip.

Whale watching with http://elding.is/elding/

We checked this out on a Saturday and were a bit sceptical about seeing any. Loads of people were booking for it though so we put it on the list of things to do on a weekday when hopefully less people would be about! 

We did this on our last day, and what a cold wet and windy one it was too.  They put a short video clip on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4Ff6jB5-Ao&feature=share  and called it “Extreme Whale Watching” on their blog.  Biggest problems in trying to take pictures were (in no particular order) pitching boat, high winds blowing you about, not knowing where the Whale was going to come up, rain and spray covering your lens as soon as you raised it for a picture and low light levels.  Still we saw several Humpback Whales and a few Harbour Porpoises.  Nice to see a full size live Whale after the dead one we saw at Christmas.  http://naffusername.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-whale.html. 

I hope to go back to Iceland again, but will try and go further north next time.  Drop me a note if you’ve any questions or comments.

Some of the better pics here

Peter.