Gannets

I found this Gannet colony completely by accident. I was exploring the roads north of Þórshöfn, and decided to drive out as far as I could towards Langanesviti, where there is a solitary lighthouse (Fontur).

I passed a sign and realised that there was a man made overlook, so I decided to stop and have a look. I am very glad I did.

There are hundreds of nesting Gannets below you, and the skies are filled with flying birds. The noise is amazing. A proper cacophony of Gannet calls.

As the colony itself is so far away (probably 100+ metres (300 feet), it is hard to get a good photo of the detail of the birds. And as it was windy, getting the focus to lock on the birds in flight was really challenging.

So these are not the best pictures I have taken for sure.

These photos are from Stórikarl Skoruvíkurbjarg, which is a walkway overlook of the Gannet breeding colony.

Settings and Approach

90 to 280 mm lens (f/2.8 to 4.0). For the distance, it was locked on 280mm.

Shutter Priority, with the shutter speed set to between 1/500 and 1/1000 seconds to freeze movement.

ISO set automatically or limited to ISO 400 to try and keep noise to a minimum.

Challenge: Light direction, distance to the birds, air speed of the gannets in flight. Because the birds are taking off and landing in a crowd, getting the focus to lock and track was impossible, so I was using manual spot focus, with some limited success.