Stuart Richardson
Active member
We had quite a strong aurora here last night, but it was already too late for me to get out of town away from the city lights. It was so strong that it was easily visible in town, which is quite unusual, so I walked down to the harbor area and took some shots.
I sold a ton of gear this summer and finally got my hands on the S2 a week or two ago. I am incredibly impressed! The lenses are astonishing...most of these shots (other than some of the building ones) were either wide open or stopped down one stop, and they are extremely sharp all the way to the corners. I just have the 35mm and 120mm lenses, and the 35 was used for almost all of these. The noise levels are very low, but the dynamic range and color response are superb. These files have almost nothing done to them outside of some white balance. They came right out of the camera looking like this. Granted, they look rather unnatural in some of the photos, but that is mostly the artificial lighting and the aurora casting weird light on the scenes.
I made a 1 meter long print from one of the photos, and it is extremely impressive. It cost an arm and a leg and cleaned out my gear closet, but it certainly adds a whole new capability to my photographic arsenal!
By the way, the crazy blue building is Reykjavík's new concert hall and conference center. It is lit up in pulsating blue LED's at night...it is more subtle than it appears in the photos, but still rather amazing.
I sold a ton of gear this summer and finally got my hands on the S2 a week or two ago. I am incredibly impressed! The lenses are astonishing...most of these shots (other than some of the building ones) were either wide open or stopped down one stop, and they are extremely sharp all the way to the corners. I just have the 35mm and 120mm lenses, and the 35 was used for almost all of these. The noise levels are very low, but the dynamic range and color response are superb. These files have almost nothing done to them outside of some white balance. They came right out of the camera looking like this. Granted, they look rather unnatural in some of the photos, but that is mostly the artificial lighting and the aurora casting weird light on the scenes.
I made a 1 meter long print from one of the photos, and it is extremely impressive. It cost an arm and a leg and cleaned out my gear closet, but it certainly adds a whole new capability to my photographic arsenal!
By the way, the crazy blue building is Reykjavík's new concert hall and conference center. It is lit up in pulsating blue LED's at night...it is more subtle than it appears in the photos, but still rather amazing.
