How to take Great Fireworks Photos :: Happy 4th of July! (Sterling, KS)

Most people have just given up. Shaky, blurry, noisy, pixelated photos of fireworks cause many of us to quickly give up and just enjoy the show. Now there are a few brave, deluded souls--bless their hearts--who are holding their cameras at arms length and popping their flash vainly at the fireworks, drawing angry, slightly off-axis glares as everyone's night vision is seared. (Pro tip, bunny trail: Never use your flash at night unless there's something within 10 feet of the camera that you're trying to illuminate. It doesn't reach further than that and is just extremely annoying even when you're using it properly. Furthermore, a flash will never help a light source like fireworks. You cannot illuminate light with a different colored light. If you're close enough for it to actually bounce off of something solid, it will just mix the colored light down to a more washed out white.)

But all this is unnecessary! If you want to, no matter what camera you have, you can take nice pictures of fireworks. And it's pretty easy too. Let me show you how. There are just three basic things you need to do:

1. Keep your camera rock solid. Preferably with a tripod (you can usually find cheap tripods at a thrift store for $2-5). And yes, they make inexpensive tripods for phone cameras too. However, if you're unable to get a tripod, you can jury-rig something to keep your camera steady, especially if you have some sort of image stabilization.
2. Use a long exposure. If you have no idea what this is, I promise it's very easy and I'll show you how. I'll also teach you the other settings to use and how to intelligently adjust them to suit your situation.
3. Nail the focus. This is probably the trickiest part, but I'll show you two good methods to get this done, no matter your camera.

I'm going to take these three key elements step by step. Within each step, I'll split this tutorial into three parts. In the first I'm going to show camera phone users how to take fireworks pictures with their phone. In the second I'll show how to take fireworks photos with a point & shoot camera. And finally in the third section I'll teach ILC and DSLR shooters how to best take fireworks photos.

But before it comes time for the grand finale of the day--the fireworks--make sure you're enjoying time with friends and family, and don't forget to take pictures of your adorable little cousins, even if they're scared of fireworks.

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My cousin's son who does NOT appreciate the loud noises of fireworks and kept his ears covered the entire evening, poor guy. Sony A7r, 55mm, f/2, 1/250th, ISO 400. (For this kind of shot, I set my settings to M for Manual, set it at f/2 and 1/250th and then I set my ISO to Auto. This automatically chooses the exposure while giving me a narrow depth of field for portraits and keeping the shutter speed fast enough so that it doesn't blur. That's one of my favorite setups for casual portraits and it works especially well because Sony cameras handle high ISOs so much better than most cameras.

This is also the place to mention that if you decide you don't want to take photos of fireworks, I do not blame you one bit! Fireworks photos take concentration and do distract and detract from just enjoying the fireworks together with family. It's one of the few things that is that way, IME. For most things I find taking photos enhances my enjoyment of events, but IMO for fireworks it does distract from enjoyment a bit. However, once you've practiced a few years and have it down to a science and if you're using a DSLR or an ILC (interchangeable lens compact, mirrorless), you can frame up the fireworks on your tripod, get your settings dialed in, set it to continuous shooting, and lock your corded remote trigger button in the down position, and then sit back and enjoy the show! But now I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

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More adorable cousins

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Sony A7r, 10-18mm lens (APS-C lens in full-frame mode) at 13mm, f/8, 8 seconds, ISO 100. (Sterling, KS - July 4, 2015.)

Keep Your Camera Steady

Tripods

Keeping your camera steady is probably the most important thing. While it is possible to jury-rig something, tripods are so cheap, you're much better off grabbing a tripod. If you have time, order online, but if not, stop by your local thrift store or Walmart.

• Camera phone tripods: This is a really fantastic, highly-rated option and has the added bonus of having a bluetooth shutter release. Having a remote trigger release of some kind helps your photos' steadiness immensely because otherwise you're moving the camera a little bit each time you take a photo. However, there are many unique options.
• Point and shoot cameras and DSLRs/ILCs use the same kind of tripod. They all have a standardized tripod screw thread on the bottom. You can spend anywhere from $17 for a basic tripod to $165 for a very nice, light travel tripod (I own this and use it as my primary tripod) to a $430 carbon fiber tripod (I have an older model of this tripod) all the way up to the deluxe tripods that run $1-3k each.

Remote Shutter Release

Another part of keeping your camera steady is using a remote release of some kind. This allows you to not bump the camera when you take photos. (If you can't manage to get a remote shutter release, the second best option is using a 2 second or 5 second or even 10 second (if you have no choice) self-timer. This cuts out a ton of fireworks, but it may be better than nothing. Also try with neither to see if you can be steady enough to not have any blurriness and camera shake.)

• Camera phones: if you have an iPhone, guess what? You already have one! Plug your included headphones in and the volume button on the cord serves as a remote shutter release. If you don't have that, you can get this bluetooth trigger for $7 (or even better just get the tripod above that includes one).
• Point and shoot cameras: Unfortunately many point and shoot (P&S) cameras exist in a twilight zone between camera phones and big cameras. Most do not have a remote shutter release capability. You can search for it (replace "WG-5" with your camera model) to double-check. Fortunately some newer point and shoot cameras that have wifi support may have remote triggering via your phone via the camera's app. A few also support bluetooth and you could use a bluetooth trigger above just like for a phone.
• DSLRs and ILCs:
  • Canon consumer DSLRs (also Pentax, Samsung)
  • Canon pro DSLRs
  • Nikon consumer DSLRs
  • Nikon pro DSLRs
  • Sony ILCs and SLTs (also works with high-end Sony P&S)
  • Sony DSLRs
  • Panasonic, Leica
  • Olympus
  • If your camera isn't listed, just search for "modelnumber shutter release" replacing "modelnumber" with your camera's model number.

I suggest avoiding wireless shutter releases. I have both and I always use the wired one. The wireless ones often don't fire and you often have to point them at the front of the camera, because they're designed to fire group selfies off a tripod.

The ideal way to use a remote shutter is to get your shot all framed up pointing at the part of the sky where the fireworks are going (and all the settings and focus properly set as described in the next steps), setting your camera to continuous shooting (if it has it that mode), and then either holding the button down (most DSLR/ILC remotes have a little plastic piece that will hold the button down for you) or pressing it rapidly and reflexively the whole time during the fireworks show. (Make sure you have plenty of space on your memory card.) Fireworks are a little predictable and you can time them somewhat once you get the hang of it, but most times I just set it to continuous shooting and let it shoot the whole time. Whenever there's a lull in the fireworks, I stop shooting and check my exposure and framing to ensure I'm getting what I intend to be getting. If I have a little extra time, I'll even zoom in to double-check my focus

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Sony A7r, 10-18mm (APS-C lens in full-frame mode) at 13mm, ISO 100, f/8, 8s. (Sterling, KS - July 4, 2015.)

Use a Long Exposure

Using a long exposure is probably the most important cornerstone of getting your camera settings right. Basically you want your shutter speed to be somewhere between 4 and 16 seconds. I often go with 8 seconds. This means you don't have to time the burst of the fireworks and plus you get beautiful streaky fireworks. The reasons you'll want to tweak your shutter speed are to control (properly expose) ambient light (the non-fireworks lights in your frame) and to control how many fireworks bursts are in your image. This is highly dependent on the speed and spacing of the fireworks in your area.

Next, you'll want to set your ISO to 100 (or on a phone or certain cameras it may go lower to ISO 25 or so) or whatever the lowest is that it goes. This will give you the highest quality photo. Given you're on a tripod and you WANT a long shutter speed, you definitely want your ISO down as low as it can go, absent niche circumstances.

Finally, you'll set your aperture. Your aperture will affect the exposure of your ambient light, but the primary reason to adjust your aperture is to control the exposure (brightness) of the fireworks. The shutter speed will not affect the exposure of the fireworks! (That's because the fireworks are a brief moment within your shutter being open. So your shutter will be open the whole time on either side of the fireworks. Trimming that time when your shutter is open only to the blackness of the sky will not change how bright the fireworks are exposed. However, the ambient light is shining all the time at a constant brightness. The longer you take that light into your sensor, the brighter it will be.)

So to review, the important settings you'll have to tweak to your specific context:

1. Aperture: controls exposure of fireworks and ambient light. Adjust primarily to control exposure of fireworks.
2. Shutter speed: controls how many bursts you capture in one frame and controls exposure of ambient light.

My suggestion is to:

1. Start with ISO 100, f/8, 8s exposure.
2. If fireworks are too bright, adjust f-stop darker, to f/9 or f/11 or something. If they're too dark, adjust f-stop brighter to f/7.1 or f/5.6 or something. Once you get fireworks right, go to next step.
3. If ambient light (foreground and background) is too dark or too bright, adjust shutter speed to compensate.

All of the above applies equally to DSLRs, ILCs, P&Ses, and camera phones. However, there are some caveats with camera phones:

• Most phones will need to use a premium camera app to control these settings manually. I love, love, love Lightroom Mobile for iPhone (also available for Android). 645 Pro is also decent and is what I used before LR Mobile came out.
• Some phones, like my iPhone, have an extremely limited shutter speed. It's utterly crippled with a minimum shutter speed of 1/4s. You'll have to adjust all the settings above to compensate if you're using an iPhone OR there may be a possible solution. It's reported to work, but I've never tried this: there's an app that takes many 1/4s photos back to back and then stacks them into one long exposure photograph. Use its light trails feature to do a long exposure photograph. Hopefully it takes care of the rest. Please report in the comments if you've gotten this to work for you.
• Many phones have a fixed aperture, so you're stuck with whatever it's set to. You'll have to adjust the other settings to compensate. In this case, you'll have to use ISO in lieu of aperture to adjust brightness of fireworks.

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I included this rather ugly, overexposed photo as an illustration that the brightness of fireworks are constantly shifting and you will get a few irredeemably blown out photos. Don't sweat it and overreact to one blown out or underexposed photo. You need to find a happy medium where the greatest number of photos are close to properly exposed, relying on RAW's flexibility to tweak the exposure in post.  (Sterling, KS - July 4, 2015.)

Nail the Focus

This is the simplest to teach, but trickiest to master.

If you have manual focus, use that. Zoom-in on live view if your camera lets you, on some distant fixed light source. If there are no street lights or anything, even a bright star will work. Adjust the manual focus until the light source is the smallest dot possible. When it swells larger, it's out of focus. Often I'll go back and forth on either side of in-focus a few times to get a feel for exactly how small the dot gets and then on the third or so pass, I just stop on the smallest point. Take a few shots and then playback and zoom in. You'll get a much clearer image now with the long exposure than you did with the live view preview where the ISO has to be cranked way up to get you a live view, which means you can more reliably double-check your focus using playback than live view. Adjust again if necessary. Until I learned how to do manual focus at night, it was a frustrating experience with lots of trial and error. But I finally got the hang of it and now it's second nature. Make sure you practice this as soon as it starts getting dark, before the fireworks start, so you're not frantically trying to get it done after they start.

If you have only auto-focus (this is the case with many phones and P&S) then focus on the brightest light in the distance that you see. If the bright light is within your fireworks frame, move your focus point to be right over that light source. With a phone you'll just have to tap. Some phones/P&S have a focus lock feature. Try to find if you have that. If you're stuck in a situation where your bright light isn't in your frame, with a P&S you can move your whole tripod to focus on that light, hold the shutter down halfway, and then re-frame for the fireworks. But that gets really dicey and clunky. If you're forced to use autofocus, it's almost required that you have some steady bright light in your image you can focus on.

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Sony A7r, 10-18mm (APS-C lens in full-frame mode) at 13mm, ISO 100, f/4, 8s. (Sterling, KS - July 4, 2015.)

Conclusion and Review

I'll end by summarizing all of the above into a series of steps, along with sprinkling in a few more tips and tricks.

1. Get to the fireworks location very early and get a good spot. Try to add interesting foreground and background elements if possible. In my situation a wide-angle lens has been best because I'm so close to the fireworks (and I had a lake immediately in front of me and was able to get reflections as well), but in a big city, your best bet may be to get further away and use a medium telephoto to get the fireworks over the skyline or with bridges in the foreground.
2. Set up your tripod early on, adjusting it to be very solid and level.
3. Practice getting your focus right manually on far away points of light. If you're able to avoid bumping your focus, it can be far easier to set the focus during daytime and then leave it, just quickly double-checking it before you start shooting. Some people even use tape to lock the physical focus ring in place.
4. Set your camera to continuous shooting mode, if available.
5. Turn off your flash.
6. Hook up your remote shutter release.
7. Frame up the expected fireworks shooting area, adjust throughout as necessary.
8. Use RAW instead of JPG if possible. This will help enormously in getting exposure perfect in post-processing as fireworks differ greatly in brightness. You can never get exposure perfect in-camera because they're always changing. Rather you get exposure as close as you can in-camera and then RAW gives you the flexibility most times to change it later to be perfect.
9. Set your settings to ISO 100 (and leave those set) and to f/8 and 8s.
10. If the fireworks are too bright or dark, adjust aperture to compensate.
11. If the ambient is too bright or dark, adjust the shutter speed to compensate.
12. If you're getting too many or too few fireworks bursts, adjust your shutter speed to compensate. (This will set off a chain reaction and you may have to tweak aperture again.)
13. As last resort, if your aperture is wide-open and fireworks are still too dark, then you can boost ISO above 100 to compensate.
14. Hold down the button of your remote shutter release (if possible, use the tab to lock it in place) to take picture after picture automatically. Most cameras' buffers can handle a photo every 8 seconds.
15. Every few minutes (preferably during a lull) stop shooting and check your playback (quickly zip through your photos) to make sure they're framed correctly and exposed correctly. If you have time, quickly zoom in to double-check your focus.

That's it! Hopefully you'll get some awesome pictures! If you have any questions or if there are some tips I missed, please leave them in the comments below.

PS
If you have an interchangeable lens camera of any sort, one of my favorite lenses for this kind of thing is the cheap Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 manual focus lens. They make it for Canon, Nikon, Sony, and a number of other lens systems. It's a cheap, incredibly wide-angle lens that is also incredibly sharp, competing well with $1-3k lenses made by Canonikony.

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Sony A7r, 10-18mm (APS-C lens in full-frame mode) at 13mm, ISO 100, f/4, 10s. (Sterling, KS - July 4, 2015.)

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The Beauty of Flight :: New York, LA, Tokyo, Denver

I recently had the most disastrous trip of my life. The reason for the trip was a complete bust. Worse than a bust. But at least I did manage to capture an extraordinary set of images that really illustrates why I love to fly.

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American Airlines (and TAM) at JFK Airport in New York City

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JetBlue sunset at JFK

Sunset over The Rockaways in NYC

JFK Airport in the foreground, Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan receding into background

Sunset over Manhattan

Sunset on the Hudson River at a Dutch Angle over New Amsterdam

Los Angeles

LA LA Land, metaphorically; Los Angeles.

LA LA Land, actuality; in Tokyo. My seat mate was watching it. Normally the reflections in the windows drive me nuts, but Emma Stone isn't quite normal, so I decided to make the best of the situation.

American hangar

Those Qantas A380s at Los Angeles are some of my favorite rides.

Sunrise over Los Angeles

Sunrise over Redondo Beach, Los Angeles

LAX World Airport sunrise

Sunrise over LAX

The shining Denver airport in the sunset

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Watching a plane land while waiting for takeoff at Denver

Delta Denver sunset

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Sunset from the air over the Denver Rockies, taken with iPhone 7+ with Lightroom's HDR function

Goðafoss :: Northern Iceland

While there are many gorgeous waterfalls in Iceland, I think Goðafoss was my favorite. I think a lot of the reason for this was how gorgeous it was in the winter. The waterfalls in southern Iceland were beautiful, but a bit muddy around the edges as we were right on the edge of winter/spring and the temperatures were right at edge of freezing/melting. Northern Iceland was much colder, giving us this gorgeous ice and snow. (The downside of the lower temperatures was that while flying my DJI Phantom 3 Pro drone around Goðafoss, my fingers nearly froze off as my gloves were too thick to operate the remote, so I took them off. Not having thin gloves was a big mistake that I'll be sure to rectify on my next trip.)

For this shot, I used a tripod and a neutral density filter (in a holder). This blocks out much of the light, which allows a long-exposure photograph even in the bright middle of the day. This blurs the water beautifully, showing the motion of the water in a still photograph.

Tornado and other Extreme Weather Photography :: Nickerson, KS

This is a photoblog focused on travel photography. However, as humans in general and myself in particular, we tend to focus on the exotic and the far away at the expense of the spectacular in our own backyard. I've been extremely fortunate to be able to travel all over the world taking photographs, but lately I've been realizing the incredible photographic opportunities I have in my own backyard. (Literally, in this case!)

This is despite living in a state--Kansas--not exactly renowned for its natural beauty. In fact, its landscape is a frequent punchline for visitors, many who have an incomplete perspective having passed through the most boring part of the state on I-70. All that to say, the headline photograph of this post was the most dramatic evidence of this truth that has been slowly sinking in over the past few years. This tornado photograph, taken from the end of my lane, has been my most-viewed, most-viral photograph of any of my photographs, by far. (It even got a mention on national TV on CBS Evening News.)

The story of the above tornado photo is incredibly simple. I was eating supper, I got a text from my mom with a cell phone photo of a tornado, so I grabbed my camera bag that's always sitting full and ready by the door, ran outside, jumped in my car expecting to need to drive many miles to find the tornado (I misunderstood from my mom's text that it was on the other side of town), got to the end of the lane where the windbreak trees stopped shielding my view, and was stunned to see the tornado a few fields over. Unfortunately I only got the tail end of it (no pun intended) as it roped out and soon disappeared. Earlier it had been a sturdy wedge/column.

This was a tornado birthed from a low-precipitation supercell thunderstorm, which is a relative rarity. Usually the rain from the thunderstorm and surrounding clouds do a lot to obscure the tornado. But in this case, neither rain nor surrounding clouds obscured this beauty that dropped down out of the mostly blue sky. Fortunately no one was hurt and the damage was minor. It mostly spent time plowing the fields.

Lightning strike near Nickerson, KS, less than three miles from my house

There is much that could be taught about storm chasing, storm chasing photography, or about photographing in one's own local area, but I'm going to stick with giving you two quick primers.

Local Lightning Photography Primer

The first is focused on the above lightning photograph. In it, I will give you some lightning photography tips, some general photography tips, and some tips for photographing your own local area.

Framing

There are millions of lightning photos out there. Lightning is, by itself, spectacular. But in order to elevate your lightning shot above the millions, there must be some other foreground or background element that makes the photo stand out. (This is true of all photographs. Many people have one spectacular subject in their photograph, but when you're able to juxtapose 2 or even 3, 4 or 5 spectacular complementary photo elements, it elevates your photograph incredibly.) I normally don't include other folks' photography on my blog, but I'm making an exception for a terrific example of this concept, this gorgeous lightning photo by one of my favorite storm chasing photographers, Mike Olbinksi:

Incredible lightning shot by Mike Olbinski

Notice how the following elements combine to make the above one of the best lightning photos out there:

• The extraordinary lightning strikes themselves
• The incredible mountain, lit beautifully by the lightning
• The leading line of the road right into the main subjects of the photograph
• The extra interest added by the tail-lights and lights of the town

It's important to have foregrounds/backgrounds pre-scouted before a storm rolls through. I have a mental checklist of all attractive backgrounds/foregrounds within a 15 minute drive, along with all North, East, South, West directions that are possible with that particular location for easy road access, depending on the location/orientation of the storm or sunset/sunrise (the latter not only shifts north/south throughout the year, but often the best bits are the reflections of light off of cloud banks, not necessarily in line with the sun).

Settings

There is an old saying in photography regarding photographic settings: "f/8 and be there!" This was basically true in this case, with a few more 8s thrown in for good measure; my settings were: f/8, 8 second exposure, ISO 800. (I used this fantastic, inexpensive, incredibly sharp lens, the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8, that is available for all main camera mounts. It's wide-angle and fast to boot, the perfect combo for astrophotography and lightning of all brightnesses.) Those settings are a good starting point for lightning photography at night.

But you WILL have to adjust for the average intensity/brightness of the lightning that is happening near your location. Because of lightning's unpredictable behavior, you will get pictures that are too dark or blown-out and overexposed. (It helps a TON to have the two extra stops of dynamic range offered by Sony gear while shooting RAW, in order to correct such things in post-processing.) The key is to get a balance of settings that includes a long exposure in order to increase your chances of catching the lightning when it strikes.

Once you have your framing selected and your settings correct, I set my camera to continuous shooting and use something like this or this (linked to Sony versions, but similar available for all camera systems) to lock the shutter button into continuous shooting.

It should go without saying that a tripod is nearly non-negotiable, though in an extreme pinch, you can set your camera on some stable surface, propped up with various items to get things at the proper angle.

Finally, you're going to have to use manual focus. Please see this post for instructions on how to focus in the dark.

That's just a quick primer. For a more in-depth, comprehensive tutorial, Mike has a great post on the subject. Jim Reed also wrote a really great set of advice for photographing lightning.

Storm Chasing Primer

The second introductory tutorial in this post is on storm chasing. Because it's such a huge topic (and because I'm no expert myself), I'm going to just provide a list of links to resources and tools that go more in-depth:

• Six Tips for Amateur Storm Chasers
• Storm Highway's New Chaser Tips and FAQs
• StormTrack.org - the essential forum for storm chasers, filled with useful info
• TheWeatherPrediction.com and MetEd.UCAR.edu - weather/meteorology training materials
• RadarScope (iOS, Android) is my favorite app to watch the radar; the lightning strike feature is particularly nice. However, it does cost $10. There are free apps, but many have delays and are not real time.

Thanks to my friend Taylor Wright of ExtremeInflowMedia.com for adding a few of his favorites to the above list.

Calton Hill :: Edinburgh, Scotland

We spent our last evening in Scotland on beautiful Calton Hill in downtown Edinburgh. With a short 2 minute walk, you can walk around the edges of the hill getting an incredible view of most of the city. There are half a dozen different views and hundreds (if not thousands) of compositions. Calton Hill is an absolutely essential sunset stop in Edinburgh. It's likely great for sunrise as well, but unfortunately we had to leave for the airport before sunrise.

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We had a long, spectacular sunset over Edinburgh

We stayed at the wonderful Sheraton Grand Edinburgh for only 12k points per night. For a hotel that was going for 500 GBP in peak summer season, it was a fantastic value. My Starwood Platinum status gave us lounge access. They have a really beautiful club lounge with a delicious, filling evening supper spread.

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The streets of beautiful Edinburgh from the foot of Calton Hill. Handheld A7rII 55mm, f/1.8, ISO 800, 1/60th.

This post is part of a series of posts about my family's British Isles trip in July/August of 2016. My parents and four siblings joined me as we went from London to Dublin and everywhere in between in 2.5 weeks. Here's our itinerary:

1. London (England)
2. Stonehenge (England)
3. Oxford (England)
4. Bibury, Cotswolds (England)
5. Wales
6. Peak District (England)
7. Chatsworth House (Peak District, England)
8. Yorkshire and Staithes (England)
9. Foggy Scottish Highlands (Scotland)
10. Bright Scottish Highlands (Scotland)
11. Kilts & Bagpipes (Scotland)
12. Edinburgh (Scotland)
13. Northern Ireland
14. Waterford/Dunmore East (Ireland)
15. Western Ireland and the Cliffs of Moher (Ireland)
16. Dublin (Ireland)

Kilts & Bagpipes :: Callander, Scotland

As we drove the long drive from Isle of Skye back to Edinburgh for our flight to Ireland the next morning, we passed again through Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park. We stopped in the little town of Callander so the ladies could do a little shopping.  The men and others less interested in shopping got some coffee at a coffee shop. And then as we sat sipping our coffee, we heard bagpipes in the distance! So we meandered down the block to the main square where kilt-wearing bagpipers and kilt-wearing dancers took turns doing all sorts of traditional Scottish dances! What a pleasant surprise!

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The dancing happened in front of St. Kessog's Church

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A bow before the dance

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Cute blond Scottish girl ready and confident

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Marching in for the sword dance

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Scottish bagpipes

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Laying down the swords for the sword dance

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Dancing the Scottish sword dance

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Dancing the Scottish sword dance

This post is part of a series of posts about my family's British Isles trip in July/August of 2016. My parents and four siblings joined me as we went from London to Dublin and everywhere in between in 2.5 weeks. Here's our itinerary:

1. London (England)
2. Stonehenge (England)
3. Oxford (England)
4. Bibury, Cotswolds (England)
5. Wales
6. Peak District (England)
7. Chatsworth House (Peak District, England)
8. Yorkshire and Staithes (England)
9. Foggy Scottish Highlands (Scotland)
10. Bright Scottish Highlands (Scotland)
11. Kilts & Bagpipes (Scotland)
12. Edinburgh (Scotland)
13. Northern Ireland
14. Waterford/Dunmore East (Ireland)
15. Western Ireland and the Cliffs of Moher (Ireland)
16. Dublin (Ireland)

Bright Scottish Highlands :: Isle of Skye, Glencoe, Fort William

To get to Neist Point, you wend your way to the far backside of the island and the last 4-10 miles (sorry, I'm bad at estimating) are on a one-lane road. You need to keep a sharp eye for oncoming traffic around the sharp curves and pull off at one of the many turnouts. When you arrive, you can either go to the left and down a steep path to the path you see in the above photo and do about an hour roundtrip hike out to the lighthouse. You go down steeply, up shallowly (the main visible part of path in above photo) and then down again to the lighthouse. However, the views on that path are not the greatest. The best views are going off to the right along the ridge and up slightly. That's where the above photo was taken.

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Girl in the red coat. This is the view to the SE from the Neist Point parking lot. Neist Point is by far the most spectacular bit in that immediate area, but there are a number of different scenes in the area, every which way you look.

You may have noticed the somewhat odd naming of these last two posts: Foggy Scottish Highlands and Bright Scottish Highlands. That's because while these posts cover many of the same areas, they're just dramatically different depending on the weather! If I go back to the Scottish Highlands to do solely photography, I will definitely take 3-4 days in Isle of Skye, 3-4 days in the Glencoe area, etc to allow the weather to change a bit. As it was, we did get a nice variety of weather despite rushing through both the Isle of Skye and Glencoe areas in 2 days.

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Scottish mountain scene along the A82/A87 Glencoe/Isle of Skye road

One thing to be aware of is to budget a bit more time than Google Maps says for driving on Isle of Skye (in particular, but really anywhere in the UK). The roads are extremely narrow and windy and there are large numbers of tourists in high season, so progress will often be frustratingly slow.

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My sister Heidi posing amidst the flowers and Scottish mountains with the flower crown she made

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Hills of Scotland along the Glencoe Fort William road

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Dietrich and Benji arm wrestling

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Another one of the fantastic scenes along the most beautiful road in Scotland

All of these photos, except the first two taken at Neist Point and this last one (taken in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs) were taken along the A82/A87 in the Glencoe, Fort William, Isle of Skye area.

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The beautiful old-fashioned stone rail viaduct near Glenogle, Scotland in the Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park.

This post is part of a series of posts about my family's British Isles trip in July/August of 2016. My parents and four siblings joined me as we went from London to Dublin and everywhere in between in 2.5 weeks. Here's our itinerary:

1. London (England)
2. Stonehenge (England)
3. Oxford (England)
4. Bibury, Cotswolds (England)
5. Wales
6. Peak District (England)
7. Chatsworth House (Peak District, England)
8. Yorkshire and Staithes (England)
9. Foggy Scottish Highlands (Scotland)
10. Bright Scottish Highlands (Scotland)
11. Kilts & Bagpipes (Scotland)
12. Edinburgh (Scotland)
13. Northern Ireland
14. Waterford/Dunmore East (Ireland)
15. Western Ireland and the Cliffs of Moher (Ireland)
16. Dublin (Ireland)

Foggy Scottish Highlands :: Glencoe, Eilean Donan Castle, Isle of Skye

The highlight of our trip was probably our journey through the Scottish Highlands. We (accidentally!) spent two nights in the Loch Lomond area and then drove through the Glencoe and Fort William areas up to the Isle of Skye, where we spent a night. This is our route. All these photos were taken within sight of the road.

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There were many, many opportunities to stop along the A82 and A87 between Glencoe and Isle of Skye! Here my brother Benji is taking a shot.

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Some of our fellow travelers on the Glencoe Road

When we arrived in the Loch Lomond area, when I went to check-in at our hotel, I found to my horror that our reservation was for the following night! In my trip planning, I had carefully booked hotels for each night, except that particular night! So on the bright side, we had one extra day in Scotland. On the dark side, we had no hotel for the night! (And the backdrop was that I had previously spent 8-12 hours trying to find any accommodation in Isle of Skye and failing miserably because it was peak season and EVERYTHING was sold out. I had finally found some rooms at a seedy establishment on the very edge of Isle of Skye, which I was able to book for one night.) So I pulled out my laptop and hopped on the wifi in the lobby and frantically began looking for hotels in the area. I finally found a place one town over. It turned out to be one of the most incredible stays of our whole trip! Achray House was a huge old mansion that had been converted to a hotel. They had a wonderful living room filled with classy red leather furniture with a crackling fire. (I cannot BELIEVE I didn't get any photos of it!) The South African owner was a FANTASTIC host. 

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Benji jumping for joy

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One of the many gorgeous scenes along the A82/A87

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A shot out the window on the A82/A87

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A graveyard along the A82/A87

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The Old Sligachan Bridge on Isle of Skye

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A random mini-waterfall beside the road

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This post is part of a series of posts about my family's British Isles trip in July/August of 2016. My parents and four siblings joined me as we went from London to Dublin and everywhere in between in 2.5 weeks. Here's our itinerary:

1. London (England)
2. Stonehenge (England)
3. Oxford (England)
4. Bibury, Cotswolds (England)
5. Wales
6. Peak District (England)
7. Chatsworth House (Peak District, England)
8. Yorkshire and Staithes (England)
9. Foggy Scottish Highlands (Scotland)
10. Bright Scottish Highlands (Scotland)
11. Kilts & Bagpipes (Scotland)
12. Edinburgh (Scotland)
13. Northern Ireland
14. Waterford/Dunmore East (Ireland)
15. Western Ireland and the Cliffs of Moher (Ireland)
16. Dublin (Ireland)

Sunset at Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

We spent one awesome night at the Gold Coast. The sunset was absolutely incredible. And I stupidly missed its peak by not getting out there early enough. Always get to sunsets and sunrises early and watch them unfold. Don't wait until you see they're nice before going, or you'll be late. Learn to recognize the clouds and future paths of light that will make for a great sunset or sunrise.

Sunset over the main Gold Coast strip shortly *after* sunset had peaked. All the clouds on the left had been brilliant pink and orange mere seconds before. Taken with DJI Phantom 3 Pro.

We stayed at the fantastic Sheraton Grand Mirage Resort Gold Coast! I paid 12,000 Starwood points for one night. As a Plat75/Lifetime Gold member, they upgraded us to a ginormous 1000 square foot one-bedroom suite! It was an incredible deal as a Platinum member. If we hadn't had a super-early flight out of Brisbane the next morning, we could have also enjoyed free breakfast as a Platinum member, which I'm sure would have been great. I wish I'd've taken the time to photograph some of the beautiful grounds, including gorgeous pools. Ah well, there's always next time. All in all, the Sheraton Grand Gold Coast for SPG Platinums is a fantastic value on either points or cash. Highly recommended.

Sunset over the Sheraton Grand Gold Coast. Taken with DJI Phantom 3 Pro.

Long exposure photo taken by Fineas of me flying the DJI Phantom 3 while concentrating carefully on photographing the sunset. I was concentrating so closely, I didn't realize he was still taking a photo and I moved halfway through the exposure. But I kinda like the effect!

Shot taken down the Gold Coast island, away from the strip. Taken with DJI Phantom 3 Pro.

Sunset walk on the beach

Another happy accident photo. This was on my second flight of the evening. My first battery was nearly empty, so I dove for the beach, landed, swapped batteries, and took off again as fast as I could. I failed to notice that when I landed, my camera had buried its lens in the sand, coating it with sand. When I took off again and took some pictures, the red landing lights of the Phantom reflected off the grains of sand, creating a dreamy bokeh lights effect over the whole photo. Or the photo has chicken pox, depending on whether you're a pessimist or optimist. :-)

Lethbridge Airport and the Antonov AN-2 :: Victoria, Australia

The plan was to have Fineas fly the two of us along the Great Ocean Road in a plane. Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate. Fineas is only rated for visual flight rules (VFR) and couldn't fly through the very low ceiling of clouds to reach the coast, which was perfectly clear.

Fineas taxiing the plane after some touch and go landings to familiarize himself with the plane and airport

So we spent the day at Lethbridge Airport keeping an anxious eye on the sky. We did have a lovely time chatting with a flight instructor and student for much of the day. As an AvGeek, I really did enjoy the day, despite its disappointment.

Vintage bi-plane Lethbridge Airport

As a bonus, the hangar next door was filled with several beautifully maintained and still quite flyable vintage aircraft, the highlight of which was this Soviet-made Antonov AN-2, the largest bi-plane in the world, I believe:

Antonov AN-2 with very stylish leather couches

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Antonov AN-2

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Antonov AN-2

Great Ocean Road :: Victoria, Australia

The Twelve Apostles were breathtaking. The rest of the Great Ocean Road? Uninspiring. Before I go any further, I need to insert some caveats to quell the howls of protest from the many staunch lovers of the GOR.

First off, we did the GOR in a ridiculously short amount of time. This travel blogger took two weeks to explore GOR, while we did the whole thing in under 24 hours, something every writer I read begged us not to do.

Second, as the driver I didn't get to see as much, as this blogger talks about.

Third, I was driving this:

Audi A4 for which I used Hertz points; photo by Fineas

Which meant that driving was often more fun than looking at the scenery. Looking at the scenery was downright inadvisable at times, as I enjoyed the fun curves and high speed limits of the GOR. Don't get your self-righteous scold face on: the Audi A4 had excellent handling and stuck to my lane very nicely around the curves; I never made any dangerous, blind-corner departures from my lane.

Fourth and most importantly, the short amount of time meant we skipped three things I wish we could have visited: Loch Ard, London Bridge, and The Arch. Reviewing other people's pictures of those places again tonight make me really wish we could have spent the next day doing that instead of sitting at the airport, as you'll see in tomorrow's post.

Victorian Sheep

Tellingly my favorite photos of "the Great Ocean Road" (besides 12 Apostles) were not actually on the Great Ocean Road, they were when we cut across the countryside on our way to Lethbridge Airport, when we found some nice sheep and an amazing tree tunnel:

Tree tunnel that reminds me of the Dark Hedges in Northern Ireland

Lamb trying to nurse

The lamb above made a short-lived attempt to nurse, but its mum was having none of it as she preferred to glare warily at the strangers intruding at the edge of her pasture. Sheep are very easily frightened creatures. I've noted in frustration that 90% of the time I try to photograph sheep, all I get are photos of sheep posteriors as they quickly trot away from me.

Curious lamb and sheep

While these sheep initially trotted away, when they had reached a seemingly safe distance, their curiosity overcame their fear and they turned to watch us.

Bottom line on the Great Ocean Road IMO: it is a beautiful, fun stretch of highway on the way to the Twelve Apostles. Definitely take the extra time to take the coast route. Take more time than we did, make sure you know every spot you want to hit and meticulously plan to hit them. But I bet you'll cut across the peninsula on the way back to Melbourne.

Twelve Apostles, Great Ocean Road :: Victoria, Australia

The Great Ocean Road's Twelve Apostles needs no introduction. My buddy Fineas (an Australian, pilot, and photographer) and I visited a week or two ago. We were blessed with a terrific sunset. In contrast, the sunrise wasn't much to write home about; but that's likely structural, given the way the Twelve Apostles are oriented--the sunrise was at about 4-5 o'clock over my right shoulder. It was cloudy enough, I don't know for sure, however.

Twelve Apostles Sunrise

Did you know that there are only eight apostles left? (The other four were "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine" and collapsed.) Wikipedia writes: "The Twelve Apostles is a collection of limestone stacks off the shore of the Port Campbell National Park, by the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia. Their proximity to one another has made the site a popular tourist attraction. Currently there are eight apostles left, the ninth one of the stacks collapsed dramatically in July 2005."

Twelve Apostles Sunset

If you walk further down the boardwalk, you can get a view of more of the apostles, but in my opinion, this is the best composition there is.

Fineas photographing Twelve Apostles sunset

Oxford :: England, UK

We really enjoyed Oxford. We only had a fraction of the time here that we should have. We arrived around 5 pm and had about four hours of daylight. The profusion of beautiful architecture clad in ivy and beautiful landscaping is truly incredible.

Christ Church College, Oxford, England, UK

Radcliffe Camera, University of Oxford.

The above shot was my first "real" test of the new Voigtlander 10mm f/5.6 lens I recently got. It's the widest production rectilinear full frame lens in the world. It exceeded my expectations with its low distortion and sharpness. I was very, very impressed.

Bath Place Hotel, Oxford, England, UK

Garden at Christ Church College, Oxford, England, UK

Colourful girl walking in front of colourful houses, Oxford, UK

Hanging out on the Christ Church College lawn

Bridge of Sighs, Oxford, England, UK

Merton College, Oxford, UK

Please keep off the grass. Christ Church College, Oxford, UK

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Broad Street, Oxford, UK

Evening sun Holywell Street, Oxford, UK

Merton College Chapel, Oxford, UK

Sunset on Broad Street, Oxford, UK

As we were arriving in town, we spent some time wandering through town looking for parking and we finally found a very convenient spot (pay and display) on Broad Street right in the middle of the action:

The red marker marks where we found parking

Unfortunately the Bodleian Library was already closed when we got there. It has some gorgeous rooms that I wanted to photograph. I guess there's always next time.

After a wonderful time just walking around town, we headed to The Eagle and the Child pub for supper. The Eagle and the Child is renowned as the place C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the rest of the Inklings met weekly to talk about the literature they were writing. As most of us are huge Lewis and Tolkien fans (especially my sister Kristi and I), this was a very cool stop. We even managed to snag the corner where they always sat!

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The Inklings corner at The Eagle and the Child, Oxford, UK

This post is part of a series of posts about my family's British Isles trip in July/August of 2016. My parents and four siblings joined me as we went from London to Dublin and everywhere in between in 2.5 weeks. Here's our itinerary:

1. London (England)
2. Stonehenge (England)
3. Oxford (England)
4. Bibury, Cotswolds (England)
5. Wales
6. Peak District (England)
7. Chatsworth House (Peak District, England)
8. Yorkshire and Staithes (England)
9. Foggy Scottish Highlands (Scotland)
10. Bright Scottish Highlands (Scotland)
11. Kilts & Bagpipes (Scotland)
12. Edinburgh (Scotland)
13. Northern Ireland
14. Waterford/Dunmore East (Ireland)
15. Western Ireland and the Cliffs of Moher (Ireland)
16. Dublin (Ireland)

Cotswolds :: Bibury, England, UK :: How to Visit and Photograph Arlington Row

While I did tens of hours of research for our British Isles trip, it was a last-minute, night-before suggestion from dad that was one of my favorite stops of the trip: The Cotswolds. It had been a favorite of his on a previous trip to England when he was a youngster, a trip I had not been aware he had taken! I thought I knew most of the places he has traveled over the years, but this one was a surprise to me.

Arlington Row, Bibury, Cotswolds AONB, England, UK. Sony A7rII, Sony 24-70mm f/4 at 34mm, ISO 250, f/8, 1/125th. Edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Rosemary Cottage (see the sign?), Arlington Row, Bibury, Cotswolds AONB, England, UK. Sony A7rII, Sony 16-35mm f/4 at 16mm, ISO 100, f/8, 1/320th. Edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

The Cotswolds are designated an AONB, which stands for Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It's a British thing that practically is a National Park-lite.

Dad researched three towns: Bibury, Bourton-on-the-Water, and Stow-on-the-Wold. We settled on visiting Bibury because it was the least complicated name. Actually, we chose it because it looked the nicest to me in some Google Image searches and it was handily right on our route from Oxford to Brecon Beacons National Park.

Arlington Row, Bibury, Cotswolds AONB, England, UK. Sony A7rII, Sony 24-70mm f/4 at 38mm, ISO 400, f/8, 1/125th. Edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Arlington Row, Bibury, Cotswolds AONB, England, UK. Sony A7rII, Sony 24-70mm f/4 at 34mm, ISO 200, f/8, 1/250th. Edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

The most scenic part of the town is Arlington Row, pictured in all the previous images. There's a road that goes all the way to Arlington Row, but I strongly recommend against taking it. We briefly debated taking it, before being dissuaded by a sign that said "Unsuitable for HGVs". We had no idea what an HGV was (it's a "heavy goods vehicle"), but it sounded as if it might be of similar size to our nine passenger Vauxhall Vivaro van. The road you shouldn't take is appropriately named Awkward Hill Rd. and is incredibly narrow and steep and there's no place to park: you'll likely annoy local residents by blocking their driveways or the entire road itself if you try to park back there. Instead, there's a very nice car park with a 60 second walk across a pedestrian-only bridge. I've placed two red arrows at the beginning and end of the parallel car park very close to "Arlington row entrance" which is where the pedestrian bridge is. I've placed a third arrow at another free car park that adds only an additional 60 seconds of walking.

On a future trip, I'd love to explore The Cotswolds more, visiting a few of the other towns we learned about. Even though this is an AONB, there are other places in the British Isles with far more natural beauty. The really killer feature of The Cotswolds for me was not driving through the countryside, but rather the unique stone cottages in the quaint towns. The Cotswold stone used is mined locally and has some measure of renown.

Between the two parking lots I marked on the map. Bibury, Cotswolds AONB, England, UK. Sony A7rII, Sony/Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 at ISO 320, f/8, 1/125th. Edited in Lightroom, Photoshop, MacPhun Intensify.

Bibury, Cotswolds AONB, England, UK. Sony A7rII, Sony 16-35mm f/4 at 16mm, ISO 100, f/8, 1/1600th. Edited in Lightroom.

We finished our hour-long stop in Bibury by eating some delicious home-made ice cream and sipping some high quality espressos from Bibury Trout Farm, located across the road from the second car park I mentioned above. It was a perfect end to our quick visit to a wonderful little English village!

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Home-made ice cream and espressos at Bibury Trout Farm

This post is part of a series of posts about my family's British Isles trip in July/August of 2016. My parents and four siblings joined me as we went from London to Dublin and everywhere in between in 2.5 weeks. Here's our itinerary:

1. London (England)
2. Stonehenge (England)
3. Oxford (England)
4. Bibury, Cotswolds (England)
5. Wales
6. Peak District (England)
7. Chatsworth House (Peak District, England)
8. Yorkshire and Staithes (England)
9. Foggy Scottish Highlands (Scotland)
10. Bright Scottish Highlands (Scotland)
11. Kilts & Bagpipes (Scotland)
12. Edinburgh (Scotland)
13. Northern Ireland
14. Waterford/Dunmore East (Ireland)
15. Western Ireland and the Cliffs of Moher (Ireland)
16. Dublin (Ireland)

How to visit and photograph Stonehenge for free :: Stonehenge :: England, UK

I just returned from a packed family trip to the British Isles. In 2.5 weeks, my parents, four siblings, and myself visited London, England, Wales, Scotland, Edinburgh, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and Dublin. (I had found a fantastic deal for about $450 per person roundtrip in business class, which I booked for the whole family about 9 months ago. Subscribe to my Deals email list to be occasionally notified of deals like that. Over the last three months, I've sent 2-4 emails per month.)

Admission for a simple visit to the field that contains Stonehenge, with a few rope fences and a short shuttle ride from the carpark, costs an astounding £15.50 GBP ($20+ USD) for an adult! However, there's a fantastic way to get 90% of the experience for absolutely free!

Place to park along dirt road right beside farmer's gate for free access to Stonehenge

The farmer with land adjoining Stonehenge generously put a pedestrian-friendly gate in his fence (marked by the red marker on above map or you can view it directly on Google Maps here) and there's a nice path into his sheep field that goes right up beside Stonehenge! There was plentiful free parking on that dirt road, right by the farmer's gate. You'll get the view as seen in my opening photo. Now you can only view it from one side and you can't get quite as close, but you really can't get very close even if you purchase admission. Rope fences keep you quite a ways back. From the farmer's field, you are vulnerable to admission holders blocking your view, but as you can see, I was fortunate to not have that issue. (I did no clonestamping/healing in my photo. If you do have people blocking you, if you're patient, you can likely take multiple photos, load them as layers in Photoshop, auto-align the layers, and use masks to composite the photos together wherever the tourists are not. That combined with content aware heal should get you a clean photo relatively easily.)

A few key tips:

1. Make sure to use Google Maps to get to Stonehenge. Google Maps routed us around the absolute logjam on the A303 by taking us up on The Packway through the little town of Larkhill. We came down from the NE on the dirt road I have marked. That saved 20 minutes of sitting in traffic! (Use Google Maps almost everywhere you travel. Its traffic data and intelligent routing saved us tons of time. Do audit its routes, though, and do not take back roads in the UK & Ireland when it only saves you a minute or two as the narrow roads can be stressful driving, especially when driving a 9 passenger van as we were.)
2. After comparing Google Maps' aerial photos with my on-the-ground photos and my memory, I'm 90% sure they've removed that little paved angle road that comes up from the A303 from the SE, as well as that parking lot right by Stonehenge. This is likely due to the advent of the visitor center some distance away and the use of a shuttle bus.
3. The paved road between the visitor center and Stonehenge (that approaches Stonehenge from the NW) is marked for permitted traffic only, so you MUST come in on the dirt road from the NE (or possibly the dirt road from the SW; I don't know if coming in from the SW is still possible, given Google Maps' aerial photos appear out of date and we didn't try it. If the A303 right by Stonehenge is anything like the day we were there, you're much better coming from the NE from Larkhill anyway.)
4. The approximate location of the farmer's gate is here on Google Maps or is found at 51°10'52.6"N 1°49'43.5"W which is also sometimes notated as 51.181273, -1.828743.
5. If you want to spend the money to get up closer and view it from all angles, consider the 9 day pass that allows you into 100+ historic places in England for £30 GBP vs. £15.50 for this single location.

If you choose to go the free route at Stonehenge, you will be skipping the visitor center which some folks may value for its educational info. However, there are plenty of free resources online to learn about the history of Stonehenge, such as the ever-excellent Khan Academy's essay on Stonehenge.

Here are a few more photos that help you get the lay of the land:

The road that approaches Stonehenge from the NW, for the shuttle bus only.

The loading/unloading zone for the shuttle buses just SE of the main intersection on the above map.

The farmer's gate

The farmer's gate

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This is a very wide-angle panorama that shows the view from the farmer's field and the lay of the land. Where my brother Benji is taking a selfie is where you can stand for free.

I'd like to wrap up with some more personal notes on both visiting Stonehenge and on my travel philosophy in general, which will inform you what you can expect from this blog.

I don't want to say Stonehenge was a letdown. I'm glad I've visited Stonehenge once in my life. But was it worth driving an extra three hours, three hours we could have spent in the GORGEOUS town of Oxford? I'm not sure. There's something about incredibly famous landmarks (Stonehenge is a UNESCO World Heritage Site) whose high expectations adversely affect our enjoyment of them in an incredibly unfair way to where we would enjoy them more if they weren't as famous! I do think that the question of whether it was worth the trip was only a question for us because of how much we had packed into our schedule.

My travel style is that of Budget Luxury. I try to find deals where I can get awesome stuff very cheaply. I'm willing to pay a little more for luxury or high quality or otherwise unique experiences, but I'm always looking for ways to save money while traveling. Thus my travel experiences are what are for most people a very odd high-low mix of luxury 5 star hotels (when I can get them for cheaply) and 2.5 star hotels, for instance.

A perfect example of this seeming disconnect was when we were staying at the Sheraton Grand Edinburgh (which had rates of $700/nt around the time we were there) using credit card points. Dad asked the concierge for a place my brother Dietrich could get a haircut. The concierge recommended a place that charged $52 for a haircut, likely a normal price for most who would spend $700 on a 5 star hotel. However, this was quite a shocking prospect for my father as my family has never spent more than $20 on a haircut and usually spend more like $10-15.

All that to say, there were a few places in the British Isles that we visited (that I had not researched ahead of time as thoroughly as I should have) where we did not go inside because of the high entrance fees relative to their unique value. I was very happy when we found free or cheap alternatives to the many high costs of admission.

This post is part of a series of posts about my family's British Isles trip in July/August of 2016. My parents and four siblings joined me as we went from London to Dublin and everywhere in between in 2.5 weeks. Here's our itinerary:

1. London (England)
2. Stonehenge (England)
3. Oxford (England)
4. Bibury, Cotswolds (England)
5. Wales
6. Peak District (England)
7. Chatsworth House (Peak District, England)
8. Yorkshire and Staithes (England)
9. Foggy Scottish Highlands (Scotland)
10. Bright Scottish Highlands (Scotland)
11. Kilts & Bagpipes (Scotland)
12. Edinburgh (Scotland)
13. Northern Ireland
14. Waterford/Dunmore East (Ireland)
15. Western Ireland and the Cliffs of Moher (Ireland)
16. Dublin (Ireland)

How to Photograph Northern Lights :: Akureyri, Iceland

I traveled to the far north of Norway in January of 2016 hoping to see and photograph the Northern Lights. I saw them faintly on the drive from the airport to my first Airbnb for the night, but by the time I arrived, they had retired for the night. Furthermore, British Airways was holding my tripod hostage at London Heathrow, so I would have had to jury rig something with uncertain results. Despite spending nearly a week in the Lofoten area of Norway, I never once caught another glimpse of Aurora. All that to say, when I traveled to Iceland in March of 2016, I was very eager to actually see and photograph the Aurora Borealis. On landing in Iceland, we were greeted with heavy cloud cover. This low ceiling persisted for most of our trip. One night clouds got a bit patchier and the forecast for Aurora was medium, so we went out and drove around away from the lights for a while. The Aurora was out faintly between the clouds, but barely visible to the human eye. Only very long exposures could pick up its faint hints amid the clouds. This was not at all what I had been hoping for:

Disappointing Aurora Borealis near Skaftafell, Iceland. February 29, 2016. Sony A7rII with Rokinon 14mm f/2.8, ISO 800, 30s.

The night we ended up with a terrific view of the Northern Lights was one in which I was particularly tired. We had spent a long day on the road, done some hiking through deep snow, some dicey crawling down icy rocks into a hot springs cave (while trying to balance camera and tripod), and I had bumped my head multiple times on the cave roof. I had already left my comfy Airbnb once that evening to photograph a rather lackluster sunset over Akureyri. If it hadn't been for my travel companion Curt Good's urging, I might have stayed home, despite for the forecast for clearing clouds and "Medium" Aurora activity.

We first headed straight south of town as it was the quickest route away from civilization and light pollution. What we did not yet realize is that there is a band in which the northern lights generally appear, a band which is north of most places the Aurora is viewed from. (The exception is Svalbard which is north of the band, thus the Aurora generally appears in the south from Svalbard.) This meant that Akureyri was between us and the northern lights. When they began to peek out, we quickly realized our mistake with the glow of Akureyri interfering with our viewing:

The Northern Lights just starting to peek out, dulled a bit by the glow of Akureyri. March 2, 2016. A7rII with Rokinon 14mm f/2.8, ISO 3200, 30s.

If we shot west, we could nab just the corner of the Aurora with no light pollution and an incredibly dense field of stars visible:

Shooting west from south of Akureyri. March 2, 2016. Sony A7rII with Rokinon 14mm f/2.8, ISO 3200, 30s.

However, we very quickly elected to hop back in our vehicle, sprint north, cross the inlet east at Akuryeri on Route 1, and then head further north on Route 1. We set up just north of Akureyri (at this parking lot on a road just off of Route 1) for the best shots of the evening. The show started slowly with a spot-light like spray coming from the north/northwest:

This initial spray of Aurora reminds me of the fiberoptic strand lamps that pulsate with various neon colors. A7rII with Rokinon 14mm f/2.8, ISO 3200, 30s.

A7rII with Rokinon 14mm f/2.8, ISO 6400, 15s.

Soon thereafter, the Aurora burst into such full bloom all across the sky from the NW to the NE, it lit up the foreground and even my widest angle lenses could not hope to capture it all. I tried to do panoramas, but even squeezing the exposure down to 8s, the Aurora was changing too quickly to do panos. So I finally pointed my camera at the most intense part of the show, came up with a reasonably good composition, and set my intervalometer to take photos every 8 seconds. I then sat back and enjoyed the show!

I have already made that hour-long sequence into a beautiful time lapse video which I'm planning to integrate with the rest of my Iceland video and then share with y'all before too long. Here's one more shot from the sequence:

A7rII with Rokinon 14mm f/2.8, ISO 3200, 8s.

So how do I shoot Aurora Borealis?

You must use manual M mode on your camera, where you're setting aperture, ISO, and shutter speed. You can look at my settings above to get a ballpark idea on settings; don't be afraid to tweak them to match the brightness of the aurora that you're seeing, as well as ambient light from moon or light pollution. Turn off flash. You'll generally want a wide-angle and as fast (large aperture, small F-number) a lens as possible.

The thing that's hardest for most people is the need to manually focus, which is a bit of a trick in the dark. The best way to focus is to put your camera into live view mode, zooming in using the digital zoom on your screen, and then manually focusing on some distant point of light (preferably a street light or city light of some kind, but a bright star can work as well). The light will be quite bad quality because of the high ISOs your camera is using to show you it in real time, but you want to adjust your focus until the light is as small as possible. When it's big and bloated, it's out of focus. Change the focus so it starts getting smaller and smaller, and then when it starts getting bigger again, move it back to the smallest point.

Here are a few essential tools I used for these shots:

1. Rokinon/Samyang 14mm f/2.8 manual lens (Sony FE-mount, Canon EF-mount, Nikon F-mount) - This lens is the best and cheapest lens for astrophotography of all kinds, including shooting Aurora. I know it's rare for something to be both best and cheapest, but in this case it is. It holds its own in sharpness with $2000 lenses from Canon and Nikon, it's wide-angle, it's fast with wide aperture (which allows you to lower your ISO, improving your quality; it also allows you to lower your shutter speed to reduce stars streaking), and it's fully manual. You can't use autofocus for astrophotography anyway, so it's perfect, saving money and weight. As the cherry on top, Rokinon makes this lens with mounts for all the most popular interchangeable lens systems.
2. A cheap intervalometer - I've linked one that works with Sony, but they're available for all the brands. Don't be stuck on the one I've linked, because different "brands" come and go, but the same Chinese factories make them. Mine has lasted for a long time with heavy abuse. An intervalometer is great even if you're not making a timelapse, because the Aurora changes so quickly, you want to just keep taking photos one after the other and then go back and pick the best ones later.
3. Sony A7rII - This camera is one of the absolute best 35mm digital cameras out there, but there are lots of cheaper options that will still do great in this situation like the A5000, A6000, A6300, or A7II. If you must, even a Canon or Nikon will get the job done.
4. Iceland Meteorological Office Aurora and Cloud forecast - This is an absolutely essential tool that I found quite accurate. I was unable to find a tool of similar quality for Norway and would welcome any comments pointing me to any for Norway or other common Aurora viewing sites.

Here are a few important things I learned about photographing the Northern Lights:

1. The Northern Lights are in the north in most places. Svalbard and other very far north locations are the exception, rather than the rule. A local in Svalbard told me the northern lights can appear in any direction and I had not realized that this is not universal. In most places, the northern lights will appear in the north.
2. It doesn't have to be cold to see the Northern Lights. Luxe Adventure Traveler writes, "[A]nother common misconception people have is that it has to be cold to see [the northern lights]. The Northern Lights are actually active all year round. But because they are only typically visible in the aurora zone between 65° and 72° North, they are not visible from April through August when the aurora zone experiences nearly 24 hours of daylight. People just tend to associate Northern Lights with the cold since they are visible in the winter months, but we have seen them in August in very comfortable temperatures."

Luxe Adventure Traveler wrote two great blog posts about the Aurora Borealis entitled 5 Things No One Ever Tells You About the Northern Lights and 5 More Things No One Ever Tells You About the Northern Lights. Both are fantastic and should be read before planning to photograph the northern lights. You'll learn the best time of year to go, what causes the different colors of the northern lights, and some very sound advice on planning a trip and setting expectations.