I have visited Iceland many times, but what happened during the night of the 22nd September 2018 was totally beyond words. In every Iceland trip I usually accumulate hundreds of kilometers made during the night, trying to find the elusive Northern Lights in the sky, and most of the attempts are fruitless. This one wasn´t, and the gift for persistence after 200km was the most incredible display of Northern Lights I´ve ever seen.
This was the first time where the show was so incredibly intense that I almost forgot to keep shooting, replacing the shutter pressing with screams of awe. The absolute peak of the lights only lasted for something like 15-20 seconds, and it was almost impossible to capture it in the camera, as not even a short exposure of 2 seconds at ISO200 could properly expose it, creating over-exposed images. This is how intense they were… During the peak burst, the usual strong green suddenly morphed into a paler but more intense green, with very strong purple overtones and almost pure white areas, frantically dancing and filling a big portion of the sky. I cannot say I was speechless because I screamed a lot!
This image was shot right after the explosion, as the sky kept showing an awesome spectacle for at least one hour. At the beginning the lights were clearly more intense in the mountain next to Skogafoss, an under-rated place I dearly love to shoot, so I decided to go to inside the river first. People always pass by this spot and head straight to the waterfall, so we were all alone there, making it even more special.
Technical info: Sony a7R + Venus Laowa 12mm f2.8 | Exposure: 4 seconds | ISO: 2000 | Aperture: f2.8 | FLM Tripod | Manual Focus | Wireless remote | Edited on BenQ SW240 monitor
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