Gear
I use a Canon 5d mk3, it's a great camera but you don't need to get professional gear to take these shots, it just makes it easier.
You'll need a tripod or secure means of holding the camera steady. For long exposures you need the most stable tripod you can find, these tend to be big and heavy (the opposite of what most people are looking for) but you really need the stability. Redsnapper tripods are a good mix of stability and cost.
You also need a ball or geared head to connect the camera to the tripod, again big and heavy is the way forward for stability. I use a manfrotto ball head, it's extremely solid when locked and would break your foot if you dropped it.
Camera. Ideally a digital SLR, however anything that allows you to control focus, aperture, ISO and shutter speed to shoot on manual will do. If you try to shoot using automatic modes you'll struggle. There may well be apps for things like Iphones to achieve the same results but I have no idea.
I use a cable remote release, it plugs into the camera and stops you creating vibrations when you trigger the shot. You can get cheap ones for about £5 from ebay, or use the camera self timer if you don't have one.
A torch. Seriously, get a good torch, ideally a headlight. LED Lenser make good ones but they're spendy.
Setup
Firstly remove any filters from the front of the camera, they can give weird reflections. I use the lens hood to cut any sidelight and protect the lens.
Ideally go the area before sunset, it makes it easier to line up shot if you know (for instance) that there's a mountain out there somewhere. For locations you're best off away from towns or sources of light. Waiting for a few hours after dark often allows high level cloud to disperse as the temperature drops.
Put the camera into manual mode. If you can focus on something in the distance use this to set the focus, then switch off autofocus. If you can's get the camera to focus automatically just switch off autofocus and move the focus ring to infinity.
Switch off any stabilisation on the lens or camera, the way lens stabilisation works can cause vibrations when it's on a tripod.
Attch the remote release, or set the camera self timer for it's longest option.
Setup the camera on the tripod and lock everything, movement of any kind will ruin your shots.
Be aware that the camera screen will look really bright when you're standing in complete darkness, so the photos may be dark when you look at them on a computer. I use the camera histogram to make sure that the image will be viable, basically you need to make sure that the graph doesn't hit the left or right edges. This is a topic of it's own so if you intend to use this google is your friend.
Camera settings
Apeture (f number) as low as it goes, normally large apertures mean short depth of field. this doesn't matter with stars as they're fairly far away so it lets in as much light as possible. Depending on your lens this may be around f2 to f4.
ISO (film speed) as high as you can get away with, really high ISO tends to mean unacceptable levels of noise. You may be able to fix some level of this in photoshop so try a few different shots until you know what the camera can do.
Shutter speed, which way you're facing makes a difference due to the relative movement of the stars. As a basic setting 20 seconds will work in almost all situations for really sharp shots, you can push this to 30 seconds at the risk of some movement in the stars, anything much over that and you're into star trails territory.
Then just go out and try it!
You can use similar setting for light painting, and star trails.
For star trails you set the camera up to take repeated 30 second exposures (on jpeg only) then set it to run for a few hours. The resulting hundreds of images can be stitched into a star trail using free software at startrails.de
Light painting. Set the camera for 30 seconds (or more) then get busy with torches, flames, whatever you can come up with.
This photo was done by spinning burning wire wool on the end of a cable, the wire wool is stuffed loosely into an old whisk (yes really) lit then spun. Set the shot up as you would for the landscape or background you're using then trigger the camera, spin the burning wire wool and revel in the results. Obviously don't wear anything flammable or do it in areas that may catch fire.
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Out of the whole run the section in the arctic circle was my favorite, amazing roads with less people and great scenery. I really do like Norway, even though it's an extremely expensive place to go I'm really impressed. I spent two days each in Sweden and Finland and would like to see a lot more. Over the whole trip everyone I met was helpful and friendly. If I was to do a similar journey again I'd probably attempt to have some more short days as I was getting pretty tired towards the end. I'm not the sort of person to worry about missing museums or other attractions though, I really just want to ride my bike and take pictures. Even towards the end of the trip I was still waking up early ready to get on the bike and get moving. I'd have liked to have camped more but it was so sunny that I really struggled to sleep. I would take a tankbag for the camera as I did spend quite a bit of time stopping, getting off the bike and unlocking the topbox to get the camera out each time. I'd also see about a more comfortable seat, the bike was otherwise faultless. Cheerio Norway, Sweden and Finland. I think I'll be back!
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£130 a night hotel...
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Steinkjer to Molde via the Atlantic road 267 miles.Today started damp, then wet. I left the hotel at 8 in light drizzle, and quickly had to stop at a garage for a large can of red bull and to put on the heated vest as it was 12 degrees. This transformed my spirits and I was quickly heading down the E6 with the music on in my headset and feet on the engine bars singing along. The E6 is a pretty dull road, short sections of dual carriageway followed by long sections of single with barriers either side. At one point I noticed that I was riding through the Hell tunnel so quickly doubled back to the town of Hell to get a picture. Temperature outside the tunnel 14.5, inside 21. Most tunnels are cold so far. I did notice that Hell is smaller than you'd think.
Obviously now I've been to Hell and back! The weather was getting steadily better but at one point I went through a series of short tunnels with small open areas between them and got a different season in each. After what felt like an eternity I turned off onto smaller roads headed for the Atlantic road, then a familiar rider passed me going the other way, it was Tommy! I called him and we agreed to meet up, thus was followed by about 20 miles of missing each other and texts.
Ever wonder if you're in the wrong line? We eventually ended up in the same place and got onto the ferry towards the Atlantic road. We headed up the sweeping roads towards the 64 Atlantic road, eventually coming to an amazing looking bridge where we did a little greenlaning to get a better photo while being watched by bemused fishermen.
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We had to pay a toll to go onto the Atlantic road, and we could see other bikes at the front of the long line. We rode past all the cars and campers and asked them where to pay, it turned out they had parked the bikes beside the booth then walked in front of the cars. We quickly did the same while being stared at by quite a lot of annoyed people. The Atlantic road is less amazing than the roads leading to it, and we both felt a bit disappointed. Apparently it looks amazing from the air. We both agreed that we had ridden on far more spectacular roads that didn't have tolls on the way to the Atlantic road.
As we headed towards Molde the weather got worse and we got soaked. I decided to stay in Molde and Tommy headed further as he needed to be in Stockholm in two days and it's 550 miles away. I got a room in the Thon hotel but there was some sort of market in town and the main street was closed. After a bit of riding around it became obvious that the hotel was inside the pedestrian area so I rode in slowly and parked the bike on the pavement outside before heading out to dinner in another quiet restaurant.
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When I left Mo I Rana at 8 in the morning I had my heated vest and seat on. I couldn't work out why the roads were so quiet, then I found out it was saturday!]]>![]()
Lots of cool bridges and tunnels in Norway
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I met a Norwegian couple on a GS at the first crossing and they told me just to go to the front of each que, not a problem! They also found out that there were three stops on that ferry and that we were the last one, the first stop was an an island 4km long. It's lucky that I got talking to them as I hadn't noticed the number of stops or where I was actually headed for. Ferries are surprisingly cheap given the cost of everything else, short crossings were around £4. Apparently they're heavily subsidised. After the first crossing I decided to find somewhere for lunch but before I found anywhere I was back at the next ferry, just in time to ride straight on as the last vehicle, past a big line of campers. On the next island I finally gave up and stopped for a garage hot dog, they really aren't big on places to eat. The pump was automatic with a card machine like most, but it finally asked me what grade I wanted, there was only one nozzle for unleaded, and two buttons marked in Norwegian. I had to shout to the guy at the next pump for a translation, turns out it was to pay at pump or in the shop. I'd already paid. I talked to the guy and his mate as I had my hot dog (that I tasted for the rest of the day), they both worked offshore, one in Norway and the other in rig fabrication in Korea. Both seemed surprised at the distances I'd been covering. Again I was pleasantly surprised by how friendly the people are in Norway.
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The scenery was amazing, by now I was starting to get used to seeing stunning views at every turn. As I approached the last ferry I saw a cruiser in the distance, two up with lots of luggage. I expected to overtake them pretty quickly but it took me almost to the ferry to catch up. It was an 1800 Indian, the rider was wearing a bike club vest but seemed friendly anyway and was interested in the triumph. He just laughed when I commented on how long it had taken me to catch up, then showed me where the exhaust pipes were ground down in the corners. The last run down the 17 to the E6 was a bit of a slog as the weather got really rainy. I'd got a text from Tommy saying he was 50 miles away waiting at the ferry, I didn't realise he was 50 miles behind me until later! I'd been riding along wondering where the ferry was for quite a while before I zoomed out on the sat nav and discovered there were no more ferries on my route. I eventually stopped at Steinkjer, I'd stopped at a best western first but It was like a cheap travel lodge and £130 a night. I got an apartment on the campsite for £60 as they were out of cabins and I was too tired to look any further, it was like student halls but it had the important roof and blinds so I could sleep. A dinner of cheese and ham sandwiches after a trip to the nearest supermarket then bed by 1030.
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After a bit of deliberation I decided to keep riding, and stopped after an hour or so at a campsite with huts. As I wanted a shower and toilet in my hut I got a big one with 2 bedrooms and a kitchen. And blackout blinds, bliss!
It was more a wooden bungalow than I hut, and at £130 a night about the same as a hotel would have been.
When I pulled in there were the three Ukranian BMW bikes. It's a small world really, I had a chat with the riders and they're attitude towards the speed limit was that it didn't really apply to them!
I got a giant pizza from the on site takeaway and on the way back to my hut noticed that there were a bunch of Harley Davidson bikes parked at the one next door. I kind of expected hassle from the riders as there were all wearing cut off jackets with patches on their backs, but they turned out to be really cool and gave me some great routes for further along my journey.
One thing I did struggle with was getting food during the day. In the UK petrol stations have become little supermarkets and you can easily buy lunch there, in norway a lot of the petrol stations are unmanned or only really sell nasty hot dogs. I had intended to buy food in shops but sandwiches go off on warm days as the luggage turns into a small oven.
Amazing pizza that I mostly inhaled after missing lunch.
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375 miles Time to pick the bike up! Well my 95 quid hotel room was crap, too hot to sleep with the windows shut but too noisy with them open. Also £3.80 for a chocolate bar I got up at 7 (I was too excited to sleep any longer) and had breakfast before asking reception about taxis to get the bike, they had no clue how much it would cost and couldn't call one. In the end I flagged one down and offered cash after checking online to see how much it should be. After a slightly scenic route to the shipping place (I don't think the driver knew if it was right, he took off as soon as I was out of the car) and eventually got my bike, still fully wrapped. I asked the guy if he had a knife and he just said no then wandered off, a correct if unhelpful reply. I had to cut it out using my house key as the only knife I had was still wrapped up with the bike! In this photo the guy is leaving on his forklift.![]()
The weather was great all day apart from 15 minutes of serious rain in the afternoon, 18-25c otherwise. Riding through Sweden just over the border I met a cool guy on a 1975 Norton commando he'd restored himself. Utterly lovely bike that had me idly searching to see how much one would cost that evening. I had stopped to take a picture when he pulled into the same layby and I asked him about the bike. We ended up having lunch together an hour and a half later due to the lack of restaraunts in this part of Sweden. I'd eventually found somewhere to have lunch and he arrived about 10 minutes after me!
He asked me what I do and explained my job on the rigs in the north sea, he said that he was on the barge next to the Alexander keilland when it turned turtle, after 6 more months he quit and never went back. Seeing them recover the bodies from the sea played on his mind too much. I think motorbikes are one of few hobbies that would allow two complete strangers to share a meal then continue on seperate journeys. Rode 375 miles stopping at 7 when I found a camp site. The scenery had been lots of trees, all day. Just lots and lots of trees.
I camped for the first time in 22 years, I had decided during the day that I would like to camp to try out the gear and the tent. Dinner was some of my 'emergency' noodles so that I could try out the stove and feel a bit more like an adventurer (while sitting on a campsite with the shower block about 50 yards away). They were actually OK!
Noodles and rum, what could possibly go wrong... It took a while to get comfortable in the tent and as it was pretty cold I got right into my warm sleeping bag and zipped it all the way up just leaving a little hole at my face. I woke up an hour later so hot I could barely breathe! One thing about it being light all the time, the birds never shut up.
This was about as dark as it got all night, and this was pretty far south in the general scheme of things!