New Zealand – Lenticular Clouds over the Remarkables

During my two weeks in the South Island of New Zealand last year I had several opportunities to photograph The Remarkables on the foreshore of Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown. This is a wonderful location for landscape photography – not to mention convenient. One can simply wander down from one of the many restaurants before or after dinner, set up, get the shot and then wander back for an evening night cap – pretty civilised stuff and a pleasant change from hours of driving and hiking.

The Remarkables make a stunning back drop to the view across the Lake and the whole scene comes alive with evening light and soft cloud. I was fortunate to get one really good sunset with some lovely soft lenticular clouds to offset the jagged peaks of the Remarkables themselves. Photographed with the Canon EOS 1DS MKIII and 24mm F1.4L MKII at F11 ISO 100 with a 3 stop hard graduated neutral density filter exposure time was still only a quarter of a second (the setting sun is just out of frame on the left). This was pretty much F11 and be there.

Iceland Volcano Update – Is there about to be an Earth Shaking Kaboom?

In the past 48 hours there have been four earthquakes at the larger Katla volcano in Iceland. The earthquakes may be due to ice movements within the Mýrdalsjökull glacier or magma movement under the volcano. Scientists have been keeping a close watch on the Katla volcano, due to the possibility of an eruption triggered by the activity at the nearby Eyjafjallajokull volcano. Earthquakes are the inbuilt warning that an eruption may be imminent and history has shown that Katla usually erupts after being triggered by an eruption at Eyjafjallajokull. Historically large eruptions at Katla have occurred at regular intervals about every 50 years. Katla usually produces eruptions far more devastating and an eruption in the next 8 weeks could seriously screw up my travel plans. On the other hand, an eruption when I arrive could turn into some pretty special photographic opportunities. This is proving to be nail biting stuff for me…

You can view a live webcam of current activity HERE.