Greenland

I had the opportunity to get some shots of the east coast of Greenland the other day, at 64 degrees North. The first picture was taken just off the coast, the rest along the coast and up to where the ice-sheet, which is over 12000 feet thick, spills through the coastal range into the sea in a series of short but massive glaciers. Larger versions and the geodata/google maps info are on my Flickr.

Ice Floes




Ice Pool




Glaciers End




Short Glacier




Confluence




Fjord

Superb bird's eye views

Always good to see these aerial photos. I find that where you have rock and water, it is sometimes difficult to convey the scale, as big things can look exactly the same as small things - one of those fractal geometry thingies. Ice floes could be an icy puddle, for example. Not a criticism just a rambling observation. So the ones which work best for me are those which are most obviously large scale. Confluence is my pick of this series, look forward to the coffee table book one day.

Wow - you see some awesome views in your job! I think I like confluence the best too; very cool, and looks to have better contrast throughout the image (if that makes sense).

Surprising how nature can look so man made. At what altitude would these be taken?

I agree with the other posters- Confluence the best shot

Thanks for the comments! Confluence is my favourite shot, too. It is difficult sometimes to get a sense of scale, without any man made objects in the picture, as the Docc pointed out. It's also difficult to get rid of the haze, especially in the distance where it is more marked, hence there is more contrast in shots where the image does not reach the horizon. The last shot seemed to have some very thin mist in the distance, which is why the contrast drops rapidly in that picture. I am getting an IR camera soon, converted by Karma Mechanic, so I am really looking forward to seeing how aerial shots work out with that!

Japers, These shots were all taken from 34000 feet.

Jon, these may be some of the best aerial shots taken of this region. They're certainly the best I've seen.

Amazing set of images! My favourite photo is also Confluence (even though Fjord would be an obvious preference for a Norwegian:lol What kind of equipment do you use for these aerial shots?

Best regards
Bjørn

Thanks Andrew and Bjorn! It was a stroke of luck that we flew over this part of Greenland, we normally fly further south, and that the weather was pretty good. It's actually very rare to get this good an opportunity: the last time was a few years ago, and I only had a compact. All the pictures were taken on the K5 and using the Sigma 18-250mm, which gives me the chance to zoom in if needed. I might get an 18-125mm lens, however, as I rarely go beyond 125mm. I also took a couple with the Sigma 24mm Super-Wide II, here's one using that lens.

I'm always impressed by how clear your shots are. Biggest problem I found shooting from a plane is the lens bashing into everything.

(Although you probably have a little more room than in a C172).

Indeed!

Let's see how he gets on at 2400' under the London TMA on a Basic from Farnborough, no auto-pilot, thermals threatening to whoosh you up into CAS any second, one hand on the stick, the other on the camera, one eye looking through the viewfinder, the other one looking out for traffic.

Sour grapes? Moi??

Fab pics mate, very jealous of your office.

Jon, I can only add to the praise already heaped on these pictures. As Adrian says they would make a great coffee table book - 'Views From My Office.'
David

Amazing set. Had to retrieve socks from other side of room . Confluence and the last pic (with the superwideII) are my favourites.

Thanks all, it's a great perk of the job to get opportunitiess to take pictures like these. I only just wish it happened more often! As pointed out, it's a bit more of a stable platform than a C172! I got someone to clean the windows before this trip.

I have recently started work on a book, which initially will be a Blurb one, but I will be approaching a few publishers with the hope of getting someone interested in publishing it, thanks to the suggestion to do so from David and Adrian on a previuos set I posted. It's taken me a while to get the processing right, which now involves using Lightroom (lens correction, noise, WB, grad filter if needed) then CS5 (levels, curves, colour balance), then Lightroom again (final tweaks if needed), then sharpening in CS5. Sounds tedious but I've cut down the time I spend on each photo from 30 mins odd when I only used CS5 to about 5 mins...

Ideally I need two bodies, one for the zoom and one for the Super-Wide, but as I will be carrying an IR camera as well soon, I'll just have to continue to make do with quick lens changes.