Lofoten, Norway #14: mountain scenery steps from your car

[Mike Buckley]

Thread #4 and thread #10 display mountain scenery in Lofoten that can be seen only by hiking. This thread ends my series of photos from Lofoten with scenes of typical fishing villages nestled among mountains that tourists can easily see just steps from their automobile.

Please click the photos to view the larger size.


Hamnoya



Nusfjord



Valen (left) & Reine
The rorbu that we stayed in for a week is the last red building on the left just above the tail end of the boat's wake. The scenery viewed from our wrap-around deck was incredible.

[LocalHero1953]

These are great, especially #1 & #2. As a geologist, I'm going to have to go and check out those rock structures!

[Manfred M]

Nice rocks... Gawd; I'm starting to sound like my wife (who absolutedly adores this types of rocky landscape).

Gorgeous landscape and nicely captured and processed. One wonders if the locals realize what a gorgeous view they have, or if they are so used to the beauty that they don't even notice anymore.

[Wavelength]

Excellent set of images

[Mike Buckley]

One wonders if the locals realize what a gorgeous view they have, or if they are so used to the beauty that they don't even notice anymore.

There are two types of locals. One type is the Norwegians who live on the mainland and vacation regularly in Lofoten, which is an archipelago made up of six islands of which four are connected by highway. The other type is the locals who are so local that they live in Lofoten.

We met both kinds while hiking. One family with really small children just loving the most difficult hike we went on take that particular hike every year. Another pair of friends, women probably in their seventies, chatted with us on a hike that they had been doing every year for 23 years.

Lofoten issues a card displaying the name of ten hikes to mountain summits. At the summit of each hike, you punch the card with a punch that is attached to a rock or stake. The punch marks the card with a unique pattern of holes, so the only way someone can prove that they got to the summit of a particular hike is to use the punch at that summit. Once enough summits have been reached, the hiker sends the punched card in and the government sends a free statuette of a hiker.

I knew about most of the hikes on the card because I had researched them months earlier. Some of the hikes listed on the card are clearly so difficult that my wife and I decided not to take them. Yet the two women in their seventies were hiking all of them this summer and not for the first summer.

[bnnrcn]

Great images, thanks for sharing

[NorthernFocus]

Another nice set, Mike. You seem to have represented the place well. In a developed country such as Norway I suspect many of the local people are keenly aware of the natural beauty as well as the life style otherwise would have moved elsewhere.

[Brownbear]

Beautiful images!

I wonder if you could add a few words of wisdom about your approach to photographing that 1st image. f/4 yet your DOF is wonderful.... plus the exposure looks challenging... Dark mountains and white boats etc..

Thank you.

[Mike Buckley]

Continued thanks to everyone!

your approach to photographing that 1st image. f/4 yet your DOF is wonderful.... plus the exposure looks challenging... Dark mountains and white boats etc..

The aperture is f/8, not f/4. Even so, I was using a 19mm focal length and I was far enough away from the scene that everything would have been in focus at f/4, which is the largest aperture on that lens (12-24mm zoom). Everything would have been in focus at f/1.4. I chose f/8 as my go-to aperture on that lens because it's sharp at that aperture. That aperture also allowed me to use the camera's base ISO at a shutter speed (1/160) that was fast enough to handhold the camera, so there was no reason to use any other aperture.

As for the exposure, it was a piece of cake. Using matrix metering and exposure compensation of -1/3, the histogram looked ideal. After post-processing everything, the clipped highlights and shadows are minimal and in unimportant areas of the image.

EDIT: The white boats and building that you mentioned aren't particularly bright; they are only in Zone 8. Most of the bright tones in the sky are in Zone 8 and a small portion has tones in Zone 9. There's nothing noticeable in the image that has tones in Zone 10 (by design).

Hope that helps!

[Brownbear]

Thank you for Mike!

My apologies I read the exif data incorrectly. (f4 was your lens) I understand your choice of f/8 and that it works when the scene is far enough away. It is just that the scene looks so close at hand but more so that the image gives the impression of walking along the long dock, the expanse of water before the houses on shore, leading to the mountains in the background which is something that I thought one would need to use a smaller aperture for (at the expense of lens sharpness)

Thank you for advising on the zones. I would've guessed that the boats were in Zone 10 and that the mountain was Zone 1.

Very helpful and truly appreciated. Thank you.

Continued thanks to everyone!



The aperture is f/8, not f/4. Even so, I was using a 19mm focal length and I was far enough away from the scene that everything would have been in focus at f/4, which is the largest aperture on that lens (12-24mm zoom). Everything would have been in focus at f/1.4. I chose f/8 as my go-to aperture on that lens because it's sharp at that aperture. That aperture also allowed me to use the camera's base ISO at a shutter speed (1/160) that was fast enough to handhold the camera, so there was no reason to use any other aperture.

As for the exposure, it was a piece of cake. Using matrix metering and exposure compensation of -1/3, the histogram looked ideal. After post-processing everything, the clipped highlights and shadows are minimal and in unimportant areas of the image.

EDIT: The white boats and building that you mentioned aren't particularly bright; they are only in Zone 8. Most of the bright tones in the sky are in Zone 8 and a small portion has tones in Zone 9. There's nothing noticeable in the image that has tones in Zone 10 (by design).

Hope that helps!

[ShaneS]

What a beautiful place Mike...the first image was made for you, your camera and your proclivity towards the black and white image I hope you have plans to hang it on a wall somewhere but you have quite an array of lovely shots from this trip to choose from...

Manfred, nothing wrong with this...really...speaking as a wife that is...

Gawd; I'm starting to sound like my wife (who absolutedly adores this types of rocky landscape).

Just don't show her the images or she will have you booking flights

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, Shane...and good advice to Manfred! It's always good that we husbands know the wife's perspective if for no other reason than to appreciate when to ignore it.

[ShaneS]

Hey, hey, hey...wait a minute! You folks never ignore us do you? Taking my head out of the sand now

I will sign off with the best advice the my husband was even given IMHO...

"A happy wife is a happy life"

Three cheers to that!

[terrib]

These are beautiful, Mike. I think the first one is especially exceptional. Such a nice composition and depth of tones.

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, Terri!

[Otavio]

Sublime compositions, Mike, with very well balanced PP. All are beautiful images! Thanks for sharing. Cheers,