August 2, 2013
Öxaráfoss in Þingvellir National Park and Kirkjufellfoss on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, Iceland

We did the Golden Circle in southeastern Iceland two days ago, mostly to do our duty as tourists. Compared to the rest of Iceland where we've spent the bulk of our time, it was too crowded with tourists and tour buses for our tastes. Plus the strong wind and clear sky wasn't good for landscape photography. Fortunately, the wind had let up by the time we reached Öxaráfoss in Þingvellir National Park late in the day, around 9:30 pm, and we had the whole place to ourselves. I used the new-to-me Canon TS-E 45mm f2.8 for this image because that provided the right perspective.

I purchased the 45 TS lens specifically for this trip to Iceland because I wanted to be able to use the tilt motion for images like this, where there is a dominant foreground element, so I could align the plane of focus along all of the critical elements in the frame. I had been planning to purchase the TS-E 45mm f2.8 II when it's released, but I purchased a Mk I version now because it's as sharp as my Canon EF 24-105mm f4 L IS USM but has more chromatic aberration. In order to save weight in my baggage, I didn't even bring the 24-105 because I felt the tilt motion was more important than gap in coverage between my Canon TS-E 24mm f3.5 L II, TS-E 45mm f2.8, and EF 70-200mm f2.8 L IS II USM lenses. I've used the 45 TS several times so far and was quite glad to have it. We've returned to the Snæfellsnes Peninsula to revisit some locations in the hopes of having better conditions for photography than on our first visit about four weeks ago. One destination was Kirkjufellfoss near Grundarfjörður.