Why Iceland? Well, I saw quite a bit of impressive landscape images from Iceland. In addition, seeing and capturing pictures of aurora borealis has been on my bucket list for quite sometime. And finally, Iceland is geologically interesting. This island country lies on the mid-Altlantic ridge, a geological rift between the Eurasian plate and the North American plate. It also located above a magma hotspot, which is believed to have caused the formation of Iceland itself and characterized by volcanism and geothermal activities, such as geysers and hot springs. The island first appeared over the ocean surface about 16 to 18 million years ago. We could see the face of the North American plate and numerous fissures related to the continental drift at Thingvellir National Park.

This was a pretty much a self-guided tour to the western and southern part of Iceland. We contacted a local travel agency that ended up making the arrangement for us to rent a 4X4 SUV, to pre-book lodging at various locations and to assist us with the route. Yes, there were several touristy spots that we visited, of course, but more than just several times, we just pulled out of the road and started taking pictures in the middle of nowhere. There were barely any other cars on the road. Photographically speaking, Iceland was very interesting and satisfying, at the same time. We still saw quite a bit of fall colors but no snow on the ground yet in the middle of October. The Icelandic sky and cloud formation were amazingly spectacular.

As you can see on the images, we had a few beautiful and sunny days. We were very fortunate in that respect since one of the requirements to see the northern lights is a clear sky. In general though, the weather changed pretty drastically. It could be sunny but a few minutes later, the sky became so dark that it appeared a storm was approaching. Yes, it was windy, especially along the coast. The temperature? Mostly around freezing when we were there; a little colder at night but warmer during the day, especially on sunny days.

We spent 10 days in Iceland and we were barely scratching the surface, it seemed. I would love to go back there.... maybe even in the winter. Time will tell, I guess.

Update in April 2015 - We went back to Iceland in March 2015. If you feel like visiting, the link of the gallery is here: https://pbase.com/ageojo/iceland__mar_2015. Thank you!


Photographic tidbits:
Although I have been a Canon and Leica M shooter for the longest time, I had a fling with Nikon and used a D700 a few years back. Four months before this trip I bought a D800e plus several lenses and took it with me on this trip in addition to my Canon system. My goal was mostly to take advantage of the 36MP the D800e has to offer. The resolution increase was barely noticeable but anything else was approximately equal to me. Of course, there is no difference whatsoever in the images posted on the web. As usual, I didn't bother with changing the time of the camera bodies; the time displayed is Pacific Day Time. The sequence of the images on this gallery is largely chronological.

Aurora tidbits:
In general, we noticed that it was windier, seemingly colder but cloudier along the southern coast of Iceland. To increase our odds of seeing auroras, we drove further inland away from the coast for about an hour. I would say that I prepared myself pretty well to take pictures of northern lights but a lot of images turned out to be unusable after downloaded. Why? We wanted to capture not only the northern lights in the sky but also their reflection off the water surface. Who knows whether it had to do with the nearby water bodies or not, any rate, the humidity level that night was high. As the night progressed, it got colder and colder, crossing the dew point. Without my realizing it, condensation started to manifest on the front element of my lens. Starting only at a small area, the condensation grew and grew. I didn't