Fjaðrárgljúfur as a Photography Location

Fjaðrárgljúfur is a canyon located close to the ring road A1. It’s a 3-hour drive from Reykjavik and a 50-minute drive from Vik. 65 km from Vik you’ll have to turn left. There’re signs to the canyon from the ring road, so it’s pretty easy to find.

Fjaðrárgljúfur can be approached from both a lower perspective inside the canyon and an upper perspective from the edges of the canyon. If you choose to take a walk inside the canyon you’ll have to pass the river several times, but it’s fairly easy since it’s not deep.

The upper perspective is the most visited. There’re clear paths marked all the way along the edge. You can even walk out onto some of the smaller plateaus. In my case, I knew I wanted to do some drone photography. The drone camera equals to 20mm on a full-frame camera, which means it is wide angle and can create pictures with a lot of depth. I used that effect to create some rather dramatic aerial pictures.

If you’re not doing aerial photography at Fjaðrárgljúfur you’ll be fine with either a standard lens, but going both wider and narrower with your focal length have benefits. Going wide you’ll be able to get the entire canyon inside the frame, but with a narrow focal length, it’s easier to display the realistic size of this place.

In regard to the light the canyon is almost turned north/south and from the most popular vantage point you’ll get a beautiful panoramic view towards the south, so you might want to consider visiting this location during winter, where the sun is low in the sky. I can also recommend a grey day, since you don’t have to fight with the big dynamic range between highlights and shadows then.

If you want to see my video from the place, with a lot of awesome drone footage, check it out!

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