Iceland 8 day adventure

 What a wonderful trip with really great people! The weather dealt us all kinds of challenges even before we arrived in Iceland. If there's one thing I learned from this trip is that you can't control the weather! Our guide Siggy the Viking did everything he could to get us in places where the weather was less of a problem, but it could not be helped many times. We had extreme wind, rain and blowing snow. Most days were overcast and gloomy. Not ideal photography conditions, but I practiced for these conditions. 

I think the one real challenge (perhaps the most challenging thing of all) was dealing with a wet lens surface and how wiping it off and getting a shot in before more water droplets appear was challenging when the wind kicked up.

I did learn a lot about landscape photography. Siggy taught us to use our phone cameras to size up a location and get a sense of framing. Then when you've figured out the area a little better you can use the mirrorless camera with a specific lens to get your subject to stand out. I think that approach is really helpful. In some cases the iPhone 13 Pro made such a nice photo it was hard to get a better picture than that. That's just now good the phone camera is nowadays.

Here's a photo I like right now taken with the Sony/Sony pairing. I replaced the sky from the gloomy sky that day and it looks gorgeous to me!

SONY A73 with 14mm f/1.8

During this trip I rented a SONY 14mm f/1.8 lens that was a lot of fun to use. It excelled in the ice cave where the space was tight. I wish Tamron made one. What I would really like to round out my stable of lenses, my "perfect Tamron quadrilogy of lenses" is a 12-17mm ultra-wide f/1.8. [The remaining lenses are my 17-28mm, 28-75mm, and the 70-300mm]. That imaginary 12-17mm lens would be such an awesome tool if such a thing could be made. Anyhow, I learned a lot from using this lens. The wide angle gave me a new perspective for landscape photography. It was also great at finding aurora in a wide open sky. 

I obtained the rented SONY lens from Borrow Lens. The process was simple and I liked being able to use this lens without buying it. I will consider buying a lens like this.  If I was to rent something else from them I would like to try the SONY A7 S3 sometime too. It has a 12 MegaPixel sensor that is supposed to be gnarly at light-gathering for night-sky photography. 

One thing I enjoyed was Siggy saying that a certain location was a "playground"; meaning we could use any lens in different situations. Our group liked to go out with a simple configuration and carry less gear and it was a lot easier if Siggy just told use what lens to use, but when we had all kinds of things to shoot at (like at the above glacier field) it was a playground of challenging fun. I used all my lenses in some of those locations. I even used the crop sensor sometimes to push a lens outside of its normal use. I played with filters, the tripod and had fun when the weather was not wet.

This trip made me a better photographer. I learned many new things from shooting Aurora, using bracketing in extreme light conditions and setting up my camera and tripod in an ice cave. I learned how to make better use of my iPhone as a support lens and also how great it is all on its own.

I have a solid understanding of landscape photography, I'm more confident shooting in the cold, improved my skill in wet locations, and discovered a beautiful country here in Iceland.