David's Images of the Day Photoblog
Views of the oceans and seas
Wintertime walkabout in Tromsø, Norway. Random sights, ships and graffiti. Most in B&W. Images taken with a Leica X2 camera.
Individual images in the slide shows can be viewed here.
Indian Navy Diesel-Electric Submarine INS #Sindhurakshak Docked Next to the Hurtigruten MS Finnmarken in Tromsø. The 16-year-old Russian built submarine was returning from a 2 year upgrade in Russia. This was the first time that I saw a submarine with glass windows in the conning tower. Composite of 3 images taken with a Nikon 1 V2 camera and 18.5 mm f/1.8 lens (ISO 800, 18.5 mm, f/1.8, 1/30 sec) combined using AutoPano Giga Pro.
Just over six months later (13-August-2013) the Indian Sindhurakshak submarine experienced two explosions a fire, and sank while docked in Mumbai, India.
On the sixth day of the northbound Hurtigruten coastal voyage, the MS Nordkapp stopped in seven ports: Øksfjord (02:00-02:15); Hammerfest (05:15-06:45); Havøsund (09:30-09:45); Honningsvåg (11:45-15:15); Kjøllefjord (17:30-17:45); Mehamn (19:30-20:00); and Berlevåg (22:30-22:45).
On the previous night, the ship went to the narrow entrance of Trollfjord and shined high-powered spot lights to show the narrow passage and high walls. In the summer the Hurtigruten ships go into Trollfjord as part of the northbound voyage. In the winter they only go to the entrance due to avalanche danger. After the ship turned the lights off, I thought that I got an image with a glimmer of green from some low northern lights. The ship staff told me that it was just a reflection on a cloud from one of the fish farms. I went out again early in the morning and got an image that does show some faint northern light activity. Later in the evening, I got some more images showing some northern light activity. Several passengers asked why my camera was able to see the northern lights as bright green where they could barely see anything with their eyes, let alone with point and shoot cameras. The tour director on the ship was not yet making a ship wide announcement that northern lights were visible since he didn’t want folks to go away and say “is that all there is?”. Before beginning this trip I debated not taking a DSLR. Now I am glad that I did. These images were taken at ISO 1600, f/1.4, and 4 seconds. I didn’t have the tripod out with me so I held the camera body against my chest. You can see some camera motion in the stars, but it is not as bad as I thought it would be. For white balance, I used 3500 °K as a starting point since that is what I use when photographing star trails.
Sunrise at Playalinda Beach, then spent the day roaming Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Early morning spider web, lots of birds, and an alligator sunning. Many of the birds had captured a fish.
Individual images from the slide show can be viewed here.
On the second full day of the northbound Hurtigruten voyage, the ship only stops in two ports: Trondheim (06:00-12:00) and Rørvik (20:30-21:15). Having six hours in Trondheim allowed us to spend some time to see the city. Our first stop was at Nidaros Cathedral. The exterior of the cathedral is a target rich environment for religious statues and gargoyles. But it was cold outside. The last time I was here in 2007 I said I would love to go back with a perspective control lens to record all sides of the exterior of the cathedral. Well, I didn’t bring that lens along, so had to do with a Nikon 1 V2 camera and an older 180 mm f/2.8 lens. It was cloudy and still relatively dark in the morning, so the images are noisy. The statues can be identified here. After leaving Trondheim, we passed the Kjeungskjær Lighthouse.
Individual images from the slide show can be viewed here.
