Iceland Timelapse Images

[markt]

I was doing some 'practice' GIF files using Benneton Movie GIF, hopefully in readiness for this years NLC season.

I better put links to these rather than embed them else it'll go REALLLLY slow for everyone.

First one is of the Aurora Borealis over a period of about 1/2 hour. I'm pretty pleased with it, and I think it shows the background 'sky glow' of aurora that's nearly always seen within the auroral oval in the quieter bits of the animation. It's about 23Mb in size so takes a moment to load, but once it's loaded it runs smoothly!

i44.tinypic.com/14o68fn.gif

The next 2 are of the geysir Strokkur erupting in Iceland. I wasn't being as patient in the spacing of my exposures, and so these are a bit more jumpy. If you don't know Strokkur it erupts every 4-7minutes (ish!) to a height of about 20metres.

i39.tinypic.com/6oprx0.gif
i42.tinypic.com/2d5rmb.gif

I'm back off to Iceland in february, and by then solar activity should have picked up a bit and hopefully auroral activity!

Enjoy!

[mherbert]

Excellent Mark...I like the Aurora film...I need to try this next time.
we will be back in Iceland over the winter and for a longer period in March April 2010.

I need to try this for the Aurora...what settings did you have on your camera, I guess you had a a high ISO value, and wide open Aperture.

regards
Mike

[markt]

Hi Mike.

Thanks for the kind comments. I was using my 350D, iso 1600 and my 10-20mm Sigma @ 10mm f4.5. They are 15 second exposures. Camera was being tripped by the remote control, basically as soon as on exposure finished I clicked another.

I've tried this on previous visits to Iceland, but used 30sec exposure @ iso 800 - same lens, but found the motion in the aurora was so great there was blurring.

With something like this I find you're always trading one thing off against another - I have an 18mm f2.8 lens, so in theory I could probably lower the exposure again to get more detail and less blur, but you'd lose the field of view you get with the 10mm.

I'd like a fast short focal length lens - I nearly bought the new 8mm sigma fisheye, that's f2.8 (and £500 odd!). Ideally i'd have several cameras running simultaneouslly with a different lens on each, but that's leaving less and less space in my suitcase for clothes, which are pretty much a necessity in Iceland!

Mark

[markt]

Tee hee hee, I never have any mobile reception where we stay just over the hill from you, but I personally like that... Having to pay for slow tinternet thats the same price as fast internet is bad though - naughty money grabbing companies!

I've only seen auroras in Iceland 'around' solar minimum and have been pretty impressed tbh, I like my hollibops tho so I think I may be back there when el sol is in full swing... It's in the doldrums at the moment but recent active regions suggest cycle 24 is starting, it's just a question of how long it will be 'starting' for before it starts proper, if that makes sense :s