Northern Lights - David Mathre Photography

Tuesday (05-February-2013) — Norway

Gone to See Norway 2013. Chasing the Northern Lights. Day 8: Northbound Hurtigruten Coastal Voyage.

On the sixth day of the northbound Hurtigruten coastal voyage, the MS Nordkapp stops 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).

Last night the ship went to the narrow entrance of Trollfjord, and shined some 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.

Early Morning (04:22 AM) Glimmer of Northern Lights While Sailing North on the Hurtigruten MS Nordkapp. Image taken with a Nikon D800 and 24 mm f/1.4G lens (ISO 1600, 24 mm, f/1.4, 4 sec). (David J Mathre) — Early Morning (04:22 AM) Glimmer of Northern Lights While Sailing North on the Hurtigruten MS Nordkapp. Image taken with a Nikon D800 camera and 24 mm f/1.4G lens (ISO 1600, 24 mm, f/1.4, 4 sec). (David J Mathre)

Northern Lights While Sailing North on the Hurtigruten MS Nordkapp. Image taken with a Nikon D800 and 24 mm f/1.4G lens (ISO 1600, 24 mm, f/1.4, 4 sec). (David J Mathre) — Northern Lights While Sailing North on the Hurtigruten MS Nordkapp. Image taken with a Nikon D800 camera and 24 mm f/1.4G lens (ISO 1600, 24 mm, f/1.4, 4 sec). (David J Mathre)

Wednesday (30-January-2013) — Denmark to Norway

Gone to See Norway 2013. Chasing the Northern Lights. Day 2: Copenhagen to Bergen.

I arrived in Copenhagen at 07:00, earlier than expected due to the favorable tail winds. It was still dark and raining. I have to get used to the sun rising later as we get further north. There was a long line waiting to go through passport control. It didn’t matter since my connecting flight to Bergen wouldn’t leave until 11:45. I was glad that my luggage was checked all the way to Bergen. I was probably early enough to catch the 08:30 flight to Bergen if it wasn’t for the size of the Copenhagen airport. It is more a shopping center than an airport terminal. I exchanged some currency and then found a quiet area in the airport with free Wi-Fi and comfortable seats to sleep. A bottle of Coke at the airport cost 22.5 DK.

The SAS flight from Copenhagen to Bergen was on a MD-82 jet. The plane was only 1/3 full, so no problem finding space for my camera bag. Heavy rain when we landed in Bergen. Passport control in Bergen was closed, so only needed to pass through customs. It appeared that they were only checking Norwegians for excess duty items. One interesting thing is that you can use coins from a variety of countries for the luggage carts. There is a chart showing the size and value of coins that will work. With my heavy bag, I opted to take a taxi from the airport to my hotel in Bergen (376 NOK). The Thon hotel had a room when I arrived. Unlike earlier visits to Norway, the hotel did not ask to see a passport. Had a late lunch (or early dinner) – cheeseburger, fries, and a beer at the attached Egon restaurant (242 NOK). I can see that Norway is going to be expensive. I slept a few hours then walked the four blocks to the Tourist Information center to buy a one day Bergen Pass. It was still raining hard, and I was cold and soaking wet by the time I got back to the hotel. The weather forecast for the next day in Bergen was partly cloudy and above freezing. After a long day of travel, I fell asleep.

Leaving Copenhagen. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V2 and 10 mm f/2.8 lens with Olympus FCON-T01 adapter (ISO 20, 7.5 mm, f/3.5, 1/400 sec). (David J. Mathre)

GPS Track: Copenhagen to Bergen (462 miles) (David J Mathre)

GPS Track: Bergen Airport to Thon Bristol Hotel in Bergen (11 miles) (David J Mathre)

Tuesday (29-January-2013) — Crossing the Atlantic Ocean

Gone to See Norway 2013. Chasing the Northern Lights. Day 1: New Jersey to Copenhagen.

The more I travel, the more I try to travel light. Going to Norway to photograph northern lights in the middle of the winter makes this difficult. I needed to include cold weather clothing and I the right photo gear. To save some weight, I decided to use my Lowe internal frame mountain backpack (saving 4.5 lbs/2 kg vs. the rolling suitcase). This allowed me to include a winter parka, long underwear, and a heavy Norwegian sweater. The backpack went into a heavy nylon bag that would go as checked luggage for the flight to Norway. In all, just under 50 lbs (way too heavy).

For camera gear, I debated not taking a DSLR and only going with a mirrorless Nikon 1 V2 camera and Leica X2 camera. In the end, I did take a Nikon D800 with a 24 mm f/1.4G lens and a 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens. I wanted to make sure that I had a camera and lenses that would work for low light work and has an internal interval timer. Nikon removed the interval timer when they upgraded the Nikon 1 V1 to V2 model. Just before leaving I purchased an Olympus FCON-T01 fisheye converter. This adapter has the same 40.5 mm thread used by the Nikon 1 series lenses. When attached to the Nikon 1 10mm f/2.8 lens, the field of view in the camera is increased from 27 mm to 20 mm (on a 35 mm sensor camera). After including a laptop computer, 1.5 TB USB storage drive, batteries, power supplies, and cables my ThinkTank backpack weighed just under 30 lbs. Since I planned to take this bag with me on the plane, the travel tripod and walking stick went in the checked luggage bag.

Not knowing what the weather would be like in New Jersey while gone, I turned the water off and drained the pipes. Over the last 3 years, power to the house has been out 21 days due to hurricanes and snow storms and I didn’t want to risk frozen pipes. Also, last week the hose to my washing machine burst. Luckily, I was home when this happened and didn’t suffer flooding.

I had a car service (Ground Link) drive me to the airport. The driver arrived 30 minutes early and got me to the airport in just over 1 hour. I was not able to print the boarding pass at home due to the SAS representative needing to confirm I had a valid passport. Interesting note – while going through Homeland Security they needed to pat down my beard??? Total time from home to the departure gate was 90 minutes.

Once on board, I had a window seat near the rear of the aircraft. The seat next to me was empty and there was plenty of room for my camera bag. Early in the flight I was a bit concerned that only Business and Economy Plus would get a meal on the flight. We just needed to wait our turn and did get served a hot meal. Drinks with the meal were included. During the rest of the flight coffee and tea are free in the Economy section of the plane. Families with children were treated well on the flight. I had a Garmin GPS with me and was able to track the progress of the flight (map below). For most of the eastbound flight we had a strong tail wind.

Leaving Newark. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V2 and 10 mm f/2.8 lens with Olympus FCON-T01 adapter (ISO 160, 7.5 mm, f/2.8, 1/50 sec). (David J. Mathre) — Leaving Newark. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V2 camera and 10 mm f/2.8 lens with Olympus FCON-T01 adapter (ISO 160, 7.5 mm, f/2.8, 1/50 sec). (David J. Mathre)

GPS Track: Newark to Copenhagen (3890 miles) (David J Mathre)

Five-Years Ago (28-January-2007) — Norway

Gone to See Norway 2007 Family Vacation. Day 9: Hurtigruten Coastal Voyage Traveling North.

The extended family was on a winter vacation in Norway, traveling north on the Hurtigruten ship M/S Kong Harald. This was day 6 of the voyage traveling north along the Norwegian coast. The stops on this day were in Øksfjord (02:15), Hammerfest (05:15-06:45), Havøysund (09:45) Honningsvåg (11:45-15:15), Kjøllefjord (17:45), Mehamn (20:00), and Verlevåg. During the stop in Honningsvåg we took a bus to North Cape (Nordkapp) traveling through the North Cape Tunnel. Later that night, the Captain announced that Auroras (Northern Lights) were visible.

Moon at Dawn Over Havøysund Norway. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 85 mm f/1.4D lens (ISO 200, 85 mm, f/1.4, 1/180 sec). Modified using Nik Color Efex. (David J. Mathre)

25-October-2011

Day 8 and Counting

My Drobo disk-array is rebuilding after adding a new drive. Don’t know how long it will take. New images to follow. The down side to large storage solutions such as Drobo is the time required for backup and restore. Not sure how many days this will take!!!! Got a message that one of the drives needed to be replaced with a larger drive. I removed the indicated drive and inserted a new 3 TB drive. Hope this doesn’t meen that the rebuild process is starting over. On the positive side, I can to read data from the Drobo array — so I continue to update my backup drives. I’m almost wondering if I should have just reset the Drobo, and restored from my backup.

Last night Auroras spilled south of Canada into the contigous United States. Check out SpaceWeather.com. There have been some great pictures, especially of some rare Red Auroras. Unfortunately, it was overcast and raining here last night. By morning the sky was clear. I’ll set up a camera tonight, but with a lower probability. As this sunspot cycle goes to maximum, I do hope to see and photograph the Northern Lights. The last time I saw Red Auroras was while in graduate school in Pasadena California the winter of 1980-81.

You can also check out an image of an old (1928 Mercury Dime) I took one years ago today: 25-October-2010