What lens for northern lights
Discussion
I am off to Norway in February to hopefully see the northern lights, and would like to get some decent photos of any that I do see.
I currently have a Canon 1100D (1.6 crop) with a kit lens (18-55mm f3.5) and a nifty fifty, but am thinking of renting wider than the 50mm and quicker than the kit lens, anyone got any suggestions?
I was thinking of the Sigma 20mm f1.8, the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 or a Canon 14mm F2.8, but know people may have experience of these or other lenses and of exactly what I need for this sort of photography.
I currently have a Canon 1100D (1.6 crop) with a kit lens (18-55mm f3.5) and a nifty fifty, but am thinking of renting wider than the 50mm and quicker than the kit lens, anyone got any suggestions?
I was thinking of the Sigma 20mm f1.8, the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 or a Canon 14mm F2.8, but know people may have experience of these or other lenses and of exactly what I need for this sort of photography.
Flippin' Kipper said:
I am off to Norway in February to hopefully see the northern lights, and would like to get some decent photos of any that I do see.
I currently have a Canon 1100D (1.6 crop) with a kit lens (18-55mm f3.5) and a nifty fifty, but am thinking of renting wider than the 50mm and quicker than the kit lens, anyone got any suggestions?
I was thinking of the Sigma 20mm f1.8, the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 or a Canon 14mm F2.8, but know people may have experience of these or other lenses and of exactly what I need for this sort of photography.
I can tell you that from my own efforts at night time sky photography (milky way etc), and the reading that I've done, you need to aim for both really wide and as fast as possible when it comes to lenses for this task I currently have a Canon 1100D (1.6 crop) with a kit lens (18-55mm f3.5) and a nifty fifty, but am thinking of renting wider than the 50mm and quicker than the kit lens, anyone got any suggestions?
I was thinking of the Sigma 20mm f1.8, the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 or a Canon 14mm F2.8, but know people may have experience of these or other lenses and of exactly what I need for this sort of photography.
Reason being is that you can't take advantage of normal long exposure times (several minutes) when doing these type of photos as the stars etc move pretty quickly and you will just end up with streaks of light and a big green blur where the Northern Lights were!
So the only way to do it is to bite the bullet and use 30 seconds max exposure and just get the lens open as wide as possible and don't shy away from 800-3200 ISO... But obviously the high ISO handling of your camera becomes quite relevant here.
the 20mm F1.8 sounds like a nice lens, but it just wont be wide enough on a crop body.
I have the Tokina 11-16 F2.8 and I really love it. The reviews of it are extremely favourable as well. I find it extremely sharp, quick to focus, good colours, and it is absolutely built like a tank. Better than most of my Nikon lenses.
So whilst I can't provide a comment on the other lenses you mention, I would strongly recommend the Tokina, you wont be disappointed with it
I rented a Canon 14mm a couple of years back and had a lot of fun with it. So much so that I bought .... a Samyang 14mm f2.8.
Why?
Because it is sharp and 1/10th of the price.
Now, I've not used it for night stuff or long exposures but I doubt that really matters. It IS fully manual. No big deal for you subject matter since AF is pretty irrelevant and you know you will be shooting at or close to wide open. One huge benefit (maybe) is that there is no battery drain from a manual lens.
I would guess that you could buy one of these lenses for about the price of renting a Canon 14mm. Then sell on if you don't wish to keep it.
If you really want to take a zoom with you then the Samyang is the wrong lens - but as a prime giving the equivalent of about 21mm on a crop body it's probably enough anyway.
Why?
Because it is sharp and 1/10th of the price.
Now, I've not used it for night stuff or long exposures but I doubt that really matters. It IS fully manual. No big deal for you subject matter since AF is pretty irrelevant and you know you will be shooting at or close to wide open. One huge benefit (maybe) is that there is no battery drain from a manual lens.
I would guess that you could buy one of these lenses for about the price of renting a Canon 14mm. Then sell on if you don't wish to keep it.
If you really want to take a zoom with you then the Samyang is the wrong lens - but as a prime giving the equivalent of about 21mm on a crop body it's probably enough anyway.
I rented a 24mm f1.4L for a trip to the USA this year, specifically to get milky way and star trails shots. It was fantastic. On a crop sensor you may want to go wider. I'm not sure how bright the northern lights are, but you may be fine with a smaller aperture. With that in mind, renting a 14mm might be the way forward.
ian in lancs said:
I'm off to Norway / Artic Circle on a cruise in late 2013 so I'm interested too in what gear to take and what settings to use for Northern Lights too.
Very difficult to get pics of the Northern Lights from a moving ship. You'll need 25-30secs of exposure time to get the best results.NinjaPower said:
I have the Tokina 11-16 F2.8 and I really love it. The reviews of it are extremely favourable as well. I find it extremely sharp, quick to focus, good colours, and it is absolutely built like a tank. Better than most of my Nikon lenses.
So whilst I can't provide a comment on the other lenses you mention, I would strongly recommend the Tokina, you wont be disappointed with it
I have the Tokina on a Canon body (400D.) I can't comment on it's suitability for the northern lights but it is a brilliant lens and the comments above about it are spot on.So whilst I can't provide a comment on the other lenses you mention, I would strongly recommend the Tokina, you wont be disappointed with it
Have been reading up on this topic myself as I'm off to Tromso in February and I'm probably going to plump for a Canon EF 20mm f/2.8 as I think it will be quite useful in other applications as well?
As well as a fast, wide lens, there's a few other tips I've picked up in my research i.e.
1. Make sure you have a spare battery for your camera as the cold will reduce their useful life considerably. Keep the spare in a warm place but I'll leave that location for you to decide
2. Remove the filter from your lens, as with it on, the image will include a mass of concentric rings.
3. A remote trigger will be essential to avoid camera shake but make sure yours works on long exposure settings as some do not.
4. Some insulation on the legs of your tripod - your hands will thank you for it in the cold.
5. If you have an iPhone, you may find this app useful as you can set it to alert you when aurora activity gets to a certain level.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aurora-forecast./i...
I'm planning on sleeping while I'm there so it nice to know this will wake me up and I don't miss any of the action.
And finally, good luck. I know there's no guarantee they'll be active when I'm there so hope you're in luck.
As well as a fast, wide lens, there's a few other tips I've picked up in my research i.e.
1. Make sure you have a spare battery for your camera as the cold will reduce their useful life considerably. Keep the spare in a warm place but I'll leave that location for you to decide
2. Remove the filter from your lens, as with it on, the image will include a mass of concentric rings.
3. A remote trigger will be essential to avoid camera shake but make sure yours works on long exposure settings as some do not.
4. Some insulation on the legs of your tripod - your hands will thank you for it in the cold.
5. If you have an iPhone, you may find this app useful as you can set it to alert you when aurora activity gets to a certain level.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aurora-forecast./i...
I'm planning on sleeping while I'm there so it nice to know this will wake me up and I don't miss any of the action.
And finally, good luck. I know there's no guarantee they'll be active when I'm there so hope you're in luck.
Lakelord said:
Have been reading up on this topic myself as I'm off to Tromso in February and I'm probably going to plump for a Canon EF 20mm f/2.8 as I think it will be quite useful in other applications as well?
As well as a fast, wide lens, there's a few other tips I've picked up in my research i.e.
1. Make sure you have a spare battery for your camera as the cold will reduce their useful life considerably. Keep the spare in a warm place but I'll leave that location for you to decide
2. Remove the filter from your lens, as with it on, the image will include a mass of concentric rings.
3. A remote trigger will be essential to avoid camera shake but make sure yours works on long exposure settings as some do not.
4. Some insulation on the legs of your tripod - your hands will thank you for it in the cold.
5. If you have an iPhone, you may find this app useful as you can set it to alert you when aurora activity gets to a certain level.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aurora-forecast./i...
I'm planning on sleeping while I'm there so it nice to know this will wake me up and I don't miss any of the action.
And finally, good luck. I know there's no guarantee they'll be active when I'm there so hope you're in luck.
I'm off to Tromso in Feb too, from the 10th to 12th, when abouts are you heading out?As well as a fast, wide lens, there's a few other tips I've picked up in my research i.e.
1. Make sure you have a spare battery for your camera as the cold will reduce their useful life considerably. Keep the spare in a warm place but I'll leave that location for you to decide
2. Remove the filter from your lens, as with it on, the image will include a mass of concentric rings.
3. A remote trigger will be essential to avoid camera shake but make sure yours works on long exposure settings as some do not.
4. Some insulation on the legs of your tripod - your hands will thank you for it in the cold.
5. If you have an iPhone, you may find this app useful as you can set it to alert you when aurora activity gets to a certain level.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aurora-forecast./i...
I'm planning on sleeping while I'm there so it nice to know this will wake me up and I don't miss any of the action.
And finally, good luck. I know there's no guarantee they'll be active when I'm there so hope you're in luck.
PointnShoot said:
ian in lancs said:
I'm off to Norway / Artic Circle on a cruise in late 2013 so I'm interested too in what gear to take and what settings to use for Northern Lights too.
Very difficult to get pics of the Northern Lights from a moving ship. You'll need 25-30secs of exposure time to get the best results.I'm a bit reluctant to spend a lot on a lens partly for that reason, but there don't seem to be any cheap alternatives apart from sticking with the kit lens, or splashing out upwards of £250.00.
velocemitch said:
PointnShoot said:
ian in lancs said:
I'm off to Norway / Artic Circle on a cruise in late 2013 so I'm interested too in what gear to take and what settings to use for Northern Lights too.
Very difficult to get pics of the Northern Lights from a moving ship. You'll need 25-30secs of exposure time to get the best results.I'm a bit reluctant to spend a lot on a lens partly for that reason, but there don't seem to be any cheap alternatives apart from sticking with the kit lens, or splashing out upwards of £250.00.
As for in tromso, if your sitting in your hotel room waiting for you iphone alert you may well miss it all, if your lucky it will go on for a while, maybe all night, maybe as we are in solar max you may get a big storm and you can see it in town, but truth be told if you are in tromso downtown you are 30 mins minimum drive from the nearest road without street lights and it may all be over by then. The good news for those that want to sleep though is tromso is in the aurora oval from 6pm to 12AM and whilst it doesn't mean it cant happen from midnight to dawn your best chances are through the evening.
Some nice spots we found were on the road across the middle of Kvaloya, follow the signs to Sommaroya, The best spots are before you get to the fjord as there tend to be less places to stop with a clear view of the sky and plenty of trees between the shore and roads, but as go across the middle of the island there are a few large turn outs you can park in with some mountains for foreground.
If its cloudy though you need to head the other side of the lyngen alps, but watch the satellite image before you go to see which way the weather is coming from, when we were there we headed that way only to find it was cloudy and snowing over there. but as i had been on http://www.yr.no/satellitt/europa_animasjon.html we knew the weather was coming from the east so we headed back towards tromso via the svensby ferry and as soon as we got through the mountains at lyngenstat the stars appeared and later in the night a fantastic aurora.
As for camera, i used a 550d with EF-S F2.8 - 17-55 wide open with a range of shutters from 10s to a minute, when the aurora was at its brightest (we could see it by just shielding out eyes from a street light) i had more problems not over exposing the NL whilst trying to get some foreground. On the other hand the camera can be great for picking out if the NL are there or not as a 30s high ISO will tell you if the brighter patch is a cloud or NL or not long before you can tell with your eyes.
Dont forget to set your white balance for the jpegs, cant remember if i used cloudy or tungsten and shoot +raw just in case.
North west of lyngen alps f2.8 20s ISO 1600 22mm
waiting for svensby ferry f2.8 10s ISO 1600 17mm
Road across Kvaloya f2.8 10s ISO 1600 17mm
Road across Kvaloya f2.8 10s ISO 1600 17mm
Edited by ViperDave on Friday 28th December 22:00
ViperDave said:
Provided its not pitching and rolling to much it might not be the end of the world. The northern lights are not as defined as stars and the moon etc so some movement may not totally ruin the shot. Granted you may not get the best possible picture but it would be more important to get stationary foreground than sky as a black square with a green swoosh across it doesn't make for the best picture anyway, so a tripod with some of the ship in the foreground would probably work and any movement in the boat would probably blend in with the fuzzy edges and movement of the NL anyway. I have managed to get some niceish pics handheld propped against a 747 window, the biggest problem with them was reflections in the window.
As for in tromso, if your sitting in your hotel room waiting for you iphone alert you may well miss it all, if your lucky it will go on for a while, maybe all night, maybe as we are in solar max you may get a big storm and you can see it in town, but truth be told if you are in tromso downtown you are 30 mins minimum drive from the nearest road without street lights and it may all be over by then. The good news for those that want to sleep though is tromso is in the aurora oval from 6pm to 12AM and whilst it doesn't mean it cant happen from midnight to dawn your best chances are through the evening.
Some nice spots we found were on the road across the middle of Kvaloya, follow the signs to Sommaroya, The best spots are before you get to the fjord as there tend to be less places to stop with a clear view of the sky and plenty of trees between the shore and roads, but as go across the middle of the island there are a few large turn outs you can park in with some mountains for foreground.
If its cloudy though you need to head the other side of the lyngen alps, but watch the satellite image before you go to see which way the weather is coming from, when we were there we headed that way only to find it was cloudy and snowing over there. but as i had been on http://www.yr.no/satellitt/europa_animasjon.html we knew the weather was coming from the east so we headed back towards tromso via the svensby ferry and as soon as we got through the mountains at lyngenstat the stars appeared and later in the night a fantastic aurora.
As for camera, i used a 550d with EF-S F2.8 - 17-55 wide open with a range of shutters from 10s to a minute, when the aurora was at its brightest (we could see it by just shielding out eyes from a street light) i had more problems not over exposing the NL whilst trying to get some foreground. On the other hand the camera can be great for picking out if the NL are there or not as a 30s high ISO will tell you if the brighter patch is a cloud or NL or not long before you can tell with your eyes.
Dont forget to set your white balance for the jpegs, cant remember if i used cloudy or tungsten and shoot +raw just in case.
North west of lyngen alps f2.8 20s ISO 1600 22mm
waiting for svensby ferry f2.8 10s ISO 1600 17mm
Road across Kvaloya f2.8 10s ISO 1600 17mm
Road across Kvaloya f2.8 10s ISO 1600 17mm
Excellent Dave thanks for the advice, and absolutely lovely photos - if I get anything that good I'll be overjoyed!As for in tromso, if your sitting in your hotel room waiting for you iphone alert you may well miss it all, if your lucky it will go on for a while, maybe all night, maybe as we are in solar max you may get a big storm and you can see it in town, but truth be told if you are in tromso downtown you are 30 mins minimum drive from the nearest road without street lights and it may all be over by then. The good news for those that want to sleep though is tromso is in the aurora oval from 6pm to 12AM and whilst it doesn't mean it cant happen from midnight to dawn your best chances are through the evening.
Some nice spots we found were on the road across the middle of Kvaloya, follow the signs to Sommaroya, The best spots are before you get to the fjord as there tend to be less places to stop with a clear view of the sky and plenty of trees between the shore and roads, but as go across the middle of the island there are a few large turn outs you can park in with some mountains for foreground.
If its cloudy though you need to head the other side of the lyngen alps, but watch the satellite image before you go to see which way the weather is coming from, when we were there we headed that way only to find it was cloudy and snowing over there. but as i had been on http://www.yr.no/satellitt/europa_animasjon.html we knew the weather was coming from the east so we headed back towards tromso via the svensby ferry and as soon as we got through the mountains at lyngenstat the stars appeared and later in the night a fantastic aurora.
As for camera, i used a 550d with EF-S F2.8 - 17-55 wide open with a range of shutters from 10s to a minute, when the aurora was at its brightest (we could see it by just shielding out eyes from a street light) i had more problems not over exposing the NL whilst trying to get some foreground. On the other hand the camera can be great for picking out if the NL are there or not as a 30s high ISO will tell you if the brighter patch is a cloud or NL or not long before you can tell with your eyes.
Dont forget to set your white balance for the jpegs, cant remember if i used cloudy or tungsten and shoot +raw just in case.
North west of lyngen alps f2.8 20s ISO 1600 22mm
waiting for svensby ferry f2.8 10s ISO 1600 17mm
Road across Kvaloya f2.8 10s ISO 1600 17mm
Road across Kvaloya f2.8 10s ISO 1600 17mm
Edited by ViperDave on Friday 28th December 22:00
ViperDave said:
Provided its not pitching and rolling to much it might not be the end of the world. The northern lights are not as defined as stars and the moon etc so some movement may not totally ruin the shot. Granted you may not get the best possible picture but it would be more important to get stationary foreground than sky as a black square with a green swoosh across it doesn't make for the best picture anyway, so a tripod with some of the ship in the foreground would probably work and any movement in the boat would probably blend in with the fuzzy edges and movement of the NL anyway. I have managed to get some niceish pics handheld propped against a 747 window, the biggest problem with them was reflections in the window.
As for in tromso, if your sitting in your hotel room waiting for you iphone alert you may well miss it all, if your lucky it will go on for a while, maybe all night, maybe as we are in solar max you may get a big storm and you can see it in town, but truth be told if you are in tromso downtown you are 30 mins minimum drive from the nearest road without street lights and it may all be over by then. The good news for those that want to sleep though is tromso is in the aurora oval from 6pm to 12AM and whilst it doesn't mean it cant happen from midnight to dawn your best chances are through the evening.
Some nice spots we found were on the road across the middle of Kvaloya, follow the signs to Sommaroya, The best spots are before you get to the fjord as there tend to be less places to stop with a clear view of the sky and plenty of trees between the shore and roads, but as go across the middle of the island there are a few large turn outs you can park in with some mountains for foreground.
If its cloudy though you need to head the other side of the lyngen alps, but watch the satellite image before you go to see which way the weather is coming from, when we were there we headed that way only to find it was cloudy and snowing over there. but as i had been on http://www.yr.no/satellitt/europa_animasjon.html we knew the weather was coming from the east so we headed back towards tromso via the svensby ferry and as soon as we got through the mountains at lyngenstat the stars appeared and later in the night a fantastic aurora.
As for camera, i used a 550d with EF-S F2.8 - 17-55 wide open with a range of shutters from 10s to a minute, when the aurora was at its brightest (we could see it by just shielding out eyes from a street light) i had more problems not over exposing the NL whilst trying to get some foreground. On the other hand the camera can be great for picking out if the NL are there or not as a 30s high ISO will tell you if the brighter patch is a cloud or NL or not long before you can tell with your eyes.
Dont forget to set your white balance for the jpegs, cant remember if i used cloudy or tungsten and shoot +raw just in case.
North west of lyngen alps f2.8 20s ISO 1600 22mm
waiting for svensby ferry f2.8 10s ISO 1600 17mm
Road across Kvaloya f2.8 10s ISO 1600 17mm
Road across Kvaloya f2.8 10s ISO 1600 17mm
Dave these are excellent! As for in tromso, if your sitting in your hotel room waiting for you iphone alert you may well miss it all, if your lucky it will go on for a while, maybe all night, maybe as we are in solar max you may get a big storm and you can see it in town, but truth be told if you are in tromso downtown you are 30 mins minimum drive from the nearest road without street lights and it may all be over by then. The good news for those that want to sleep though is tromso is in the aurora oval from 6pm to 12AM and whilst it doesn't mean it cant happen from midnight to dawn your best chances are through the evening.
Some nice spots we found were on the road across the middle of Kvaloya, follow the signs to Sommaroya, The best spots are before you get to the fjord as there tend to be less places to stop with a clear view of the sky and plenty of trees between the shore and roads, but as go across the middle of the island there are a few large turn outs you can park in with some mountains for foreground.
If its cloudy though you need to head the other side of the lyngen alps, but watch the satellite image before you go to see which way the weather is coming from, when we were there we headed that way only to find it was cloudy and snowing over there. but as i had been on http://www.yr.no/satellitt/europa_animasjon.html we knew the weather was coming from the east so we headed back towards tromso via the svensby ferry and as soon as we got through the mountains at lyngenstat the stars appeared and later in the night a fantastic aurora.
As for camera, i used a 550d with EF-S F2.8 - 17-55 wide open with a range of shutters from 10s to a minute, when the aurora was at its brightest (we could see it by just shielding out eyes from a street light) i had more problems not over exposing the NL whilst trying to get some foreground. On the other hand the camera can be great for picking out if the NL are there or not as a 30s high ISO will tell you if the brighter patch is a cloud or NL or not long before you can tell with your eyes.
Dont forget to set your white balance for the jpegs, cant remember if i used cloudy or tungsten and shoot +raw just in case.
North west of lyngen alps f2.8 20s ISO 1600 22mm
waiting for svensby ferry f2.8 10s ISO 1600 17mm
Road across Kvaloya f2.8 10s ISO 1600 17mm
Road across Kvaloya f2.8 10s ISO 1600 17mm
Edited by ViperDave on Friday 28th December 22:00
Flippin' Kipper said:
Excellent Dave thanks for the advice, and absolutely lovely photos - if I get anything that good I'll be overjoyed!
Thanks, what you need is luck with the weather, I don't think the NL are as hard to photograph as is made out, so long as you have clear sky and they are performing and you keep shooting you should get something, Easier than the milky way i found, in fact my attempts at MW while waiting for the NL were a total loss. Just make sure you are familiar with your camera and taking night shots, know techniques for focusing with limited options on what the camera can focus on, Ie single point focus on a bright star, or on an object when a car headlight goes by, then switching AF off and being careful of the focus ring.
Worth noting in that first picture above the NL were barely perceptible to the eye when i took that. the camera can really bring them out and bring out the colour also, we never saw anything like the green intensity i got on the pictures and the storm levels when we were there were pretty quiet for solar max, i think the highest it got up to was KP 2,
Plus that shot had the added bonus of a passing car lighting up the trees.
Edited by ViperDave on Friday 28th December 22:50
Well chaps, thanks for all the advice - in the end I went and bought for the Tokina 11-16 which turned up yesterday, telling myself buying was merely storing money in lenses rather than the bank.
The lens is very nicely built, and feels much more solid than any of my other lenses and very nice in use.
Luckily last night was cleat in Mid Wales so I went out to test it out with some star photography, very pleased with the results and loving f2.8.
If anyone can tell me what I am looking at I would be interested.
some stars and a tree by Flippin' Kipper, on Flickr
The lens is very nicely built, and feels much more solid than any of my other lenses and very nice in use.
Luckily last night was cleat in Mid Wales so I went out to test it out with some star photography, very pleased with the results and loving f2.8.
If anyone can tell me what I am looking at I would be interested.
some stars and a tree by Flippin' Kipper, on Flickr
Flippin' Kipper said:
Well chaps, thanks for all the advice - in the end I went and bought for the Tokina 11-16 which turned up yesterday, telling myself buying was merely storing money in lenses rather than the bank.
The lens is very nicely built, and feels much more solid than any of my other lenses and very nice in use.
Luckily last night was cleat in Mid Wales so I went out to test it out with some star photography, very pleased with the results and loving f2.8.
If anyone can tell me what I am looking at I would be interested.
some stars and a tree by Flippin' Kipper, on Flickr
As you're on flickr, there's a simple solution to finding what you're looking at, add the group "astrometry" and drop the pic in the group. The photo will then be run through their software to identify stars etc (it can take some time to do so as your photo will be in their queue)...The lens is very nicely built, and feels much more solid than any of my other lenses and very nice in use.
Luckily last night was cleat in Mid Wales so I went out to test it out with some star photography, very pleased with the results and loving f2.8.
If anyone can tell me what I am looking at I would be interested.
some stars and a tree by Flippin' Kipper, on Flickr
Linky to the group - http://www.flickr.com/groups/astrometry/
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