This photographer shot Northern Lights reflected in a volcanic crater lake

March 8, 2017 by Dunja Djudjic 6 Comments

Photos of Northern Lights and volcanic craters are mesmerizing on their own. Photographer Sigurður (Siggi) William managed to capture them together and created a stunning photo of Aurora Borealis reflected on the water surface of a volcanic crater. We asked Siggi to share with us how he made this fantastic shot, and he shared the details with DIYP.

The photo was taken at the edge of the Kerið volcanic crater lake in Iceland, where Sigurður camped. It has been his passion for quite some time to photograph the landscapes of Iceland along with chasing the Northern Lights, and this is one of many his amazing photos. Here’s how he took it:

It´s a very wide angle shot that is stitched together from 13 separate images, all shot at 16mm with a Canon 16-35mm Mark III lens on a Canon 5D Mark IV body.

Settings for each shot: Aperture: f/2.8, ISO 3200, 10 sec exposure.

The photos were imported into Lightroom where he made some global adjustments. Then he exported them as TIFF and stitched together in AutoPano Giga. After this, he did some final adjustments again in Lightroom, Nic ColorEffx, and Exposure X.

I loved this photo the moment I first saw it. There are plenty of photos on Northern Lights, so it’s hard to be unique. But in my opinion, Siggi definitely did it with this shot. And I thank him for sharing the details with us.

About the Artist

Sigurður William is a photographer and a certified tour operator living in Island. He has won many awards for his work as a photographer, both locally and internationally, especially for his Aurora Borealis photos. He has also written a book Capturing the Northern Lights. For more of his work, visit his website, like his Facebook page and follow him on Flickr.

As a tour guide, Sigurður is certified by the Icelandic Tourist Board. He runs Arctic Shots, a company specializing in photo tours around Iceland. If you’d like to know more, check out their website and like their Facebook page.

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jet

nice manipulated shot.. show me the RAW image!
i think people always push the saturation in such shots to make them look more impressive.
i lived for 3 years in north norway and i rarely have see northlights as intense as they show on photos.
when you see photos you think they are all very bright. and when people visit norway to shoot them they are dissapointed.
- sigururwilliambrynjarsson
  
  So everybody should stop doing long exposures during nighttime because you might capture more than what the eyes see? I can tell you that I was guiding, along with my crew, 31 photographers and teaching them to shoot the lights and every single photographer went home very happy… Maybe those unhappy people in Norway just needed the right guidance… =)
  - Yach
    
    I shot the milky way in New Zealand, I was the happiest man ever because I captured so much more with my camera than my eyes could see :)
    - sigururwilliambrynjarsson
      
      Exactly… You´re not able to shoot the milky way without doing a long exposure, preferably at high ISO… =)
      - catlett
        
        Not exactly. If you shoot too long an exposure of the Milky Way the stars become little dashes instead of pin points. One would prefer NOT to use high ISO because it introduces noise but that is what you have to use to get an acceptably short shutter speed. To get more detail search the 600 rule for astrophotography also see https://petapixel.com/2016/01/16/how-to-photograph-the-milky-way/
      - sigururwilliambrynjarsson
        
        It all depends on the width of the angle of the lens when you start to see startrail and people often use the 600 rule OR the 500 rule to make sure that the startrail isn´t VISIBLE but the truth is that if you zoom all the way in on a shot that is shot well within the boundries of those rules, you still see startrail as the night sky is not going to stop moving if you use a photography rule. And that applies especially to high end equipment as the sharper the image the clearer the startrail is. As for the Milky Way, you kind of have to use long exposures and high ISO to capture the detail of the Milky Way. If you use a 30sec exposure (which I consider a long exposure) at ISO3200-6400 (which I consider a high ISO) on a full frame camera like I use and a wide angle lens like 16mm and beyond, you´re NOT going to see a visible startrail unless you zoom all the way in. But you are going to get an overexposed image that leaves you with more details in the Milky Way and when you bring the exposure down again it leaves you with a better image with a more detailed Milky Way. Like here fore example…
        
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f84ae620d913c36c8e5167393a805c6f30c4c0daae43603f31df97712ca6751e.jpg