Iceland

[agentsteel53]

done with Norway, here is the beginning of some Iceland photo sets!

https://www.aaroads.com/blog/2010/02/27/iceland-0/

[agentsteel53]

https://www.aaroads.com/blog/2010/03/03/iceland-i/

warning: may contain actual Iceland

[Chris]

Awesome story! I can't believe the door thing! I wonder about the rental place comment on that!

Iceland is pretty... empty. The country has like 300,000 inhabitants. Some parts of the circumferential road around the island carry less than 50 AADT. I once had a site where you could check the current traffic counts, the number of vehicles that passed the last hour (something to learn about for other DOT's).

[Truvelo]

Are you using HDR in some of your pictures?

[DBrim]

Awesome story! I can't believe the door thing! I wonder about the rental place comment on that!

Trust me, it's not worth thinking about.

/suppressing memories

[wandering drive]

Good to see you migrating the stories and photos from the old site.  Gives me reason to be intensely jealous all over again!

[agentsteel53]

what's this? more Iceland!

https://www.aaroads.com/blog/2010/03/16/iceland-ii/

[agentsteel53]

Are you using HDR in some of your pictures?

almost - I tend to mask the sky and process it separately from the ground.  Sometimes there is as much as a 4 or 5 stop difference in exposure, especially when it is overcast.

[Truvelo]

In your latest batch of pictures the water in the third picture suggests you're using an ND filter but the top of the cliff in the middle of the picture is all blurry as if several pictures have been merged but don't quite line up.

Anyway, enough of my criticizing. Those pictures are excellent and the work you've done on the exposure livens them up nicely.

[agentsteel53]

I see what happened there.  The waterfall photo had the colors taken from visible light, and the levels from infrared, since I did not have a standard ND filter, so I had to use an IR filter (8 stops... and very different colors).  I gotta fix the alignment between the two shots.

[agentsteel53]

fixed! 

[agentsteel53]

more Iceland

https://www.aaroads.com/blog/2010/03/20/iceland-iii/

[Chris]

only upon further investigation did we realize that the wheels were unmoving, it was the car that we didn't put into gear. You see, as opposed to second and fourth (the other gears on the bottom half of the shifter layout), reverse requires an extra oomph — a further pull back on the stick before it actuates. Until one yanks hard, one is led to believe that the car is stranded and unable to move.

I drive a Renault (French make), and they have a weird reverse as well, I have to put it between 1st and 2nd, then lift up the ring under the gear knob, and then it'll slide to the left and push it forward, so the stick actually becomes left of 1st gear, and then you can reverse. I think most Renaults have this thing, but I'm not really a fan of it.

[agentsteel53]

I drive a Renault (French make), and they have a weird reverse as well, I have to put it between 1st and 2nd, then lift up the ring under the gear knob, and then it'll slide to the left and push it forward, so the stick actually becomes left of 1st gear, and then you can reverse. I think most Renaults have this thing, but I'm not really a fan of it.

the car I rented in Norway had that feature.  I had totally forgotten about that!  The first time I had to engage reverse, I had no idea how (and the user's manual, written in Norwegian, was no help) - luckily, some folks at a gas station showed me how.

[agentsteel53]

the last Iceland batch!

https://www.aaroads.com/blog/2010/03/28/iceland-iv-2/

[Truvelo]

Your comment about the stick shift in the one of the last pictures is very true. I wished I had an automatic as it would make it much easier to take pictures. Nevertheless, when taking pictures I tend to leave it in a lower gear so if the traffic suddenly slows you don't get stuck laboring the engine in too high a gear.

[Chris]

It takes some practicing and timing. But yes, urban pictures while driving are harder with stick shift.

[agentsteel53]

It takes some practicing and timing. But yes, urban pictures while driving are harder with stick shift.

oh, they're plenty hard with an automatic!  Ever wonder why half my Manhattan photos are blurry??

[xcellntbuy]

Wonderful photos.