Anyone got experience photographing the northern lights?
Discussion
Pretty fortunate to be going to Saariselkä this Dec for 5 days.
Hopefully we will be lucky and experience the Northern Lights.
Can anyone give any hints and tips for taking good photos of the lights (if they happen).
The kit we have is as follows:
Canon 450d (standard lens and 70mm - 300mm tamron)
Canon 550d
Canon G11
Good Tripod
loads of batteries.
Would it be worth looking at cokin filter set?
Something like this:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cokin-Filter-Set-/271669...
Also if you do have photos can you tell me the settings you used please.
Hopefully we will be lucky and experience the Northern Lights.
Can anyone give any hints and tips for taking good photos of the lights (if they happen).
The kit we have is as follows:
Canon 450d (standard lens and 70mm - 300mm tamron)
Canon 550d
Canon G11
Good Tripod
loads of batteries.
Would it be worth looking at cokin filter set?
Something like this:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cokin-Filter-Set-/271669...
Also if you do have photos can you tell me the settings you used please.
Dress warm.
Take glove liners so you still have protection when handling the camera.
Prey for clear sky
Take a laptop to view your pictures at a decent size at the time rather than find out when you get back to the hotel what looked good on the small screen is actually out of focus.
Use the camera to detect if that lighter patch is in the sky is a cloud, light pollution or northern lights. A camera on a 20s exposure at high iso will show you the green of NL long before your eye can see it giving you an idea that a) something is starting to happen, b) roughly where to look/keep an eye on
Learn to focus in the dark, use a distant point light source (car headlamp, house, bright star if your lucky,) once focused to infinity, switch to manual focus and be careful.
very long exposures aren't necessarily better, the lights can move and change quite quickly so 30s-1m exposures can be too long and diminish the effect.
Shoot raw so you can fiddle later but generally i use tungsten white balance for night photography, it knocks out any yellow/orange from street lights and gives a more blue, moon lit scene, all the pics below are straight from the camera as jpgs, i'm too lazy to post process.
First was a weak aurora, more or less invisible to the eye, the rest fairly strong and easily visible, the second one visible just be shielding eyes from the street light and was quite dynamic.
f2.8 20s 1600 iso
Shield the lens from headlights, but don't sweat if a car drives past, it can light paint the foreground with wonderful results, or take a bright torch!
f2.8 10s 1600 iso
f2.8 10s 1600iso
f2.8 10s 1600 iso
f2.8 50s 200 iso
All Cannon T2i (550d) with Canon 17-55 f2.8 lense
Take glove liners so you still have protection when handling the camera.
Prey for clear sky
Take a laptop to view your pictures at a decent size at the time rather than find out when you get back to the hotel what looked good on the small screen is actually out of focus.
Use the camera to detect if that lighter patch is in the sky is a cloud, light pollution or northern lights. A camera on a 20s exposure at high iso will show you the green of NL long before your eye can see it giving you an idea that a) something is starting to happen, b) roughly where to look/keep an eye on
Learn to focus in the dark, use a distant point light source (car headlamp, house, bright star if your lucky,) once focused to infinity, switch to manual focus and be careful.
very long exposures aren't necessarily better, the lights can move and change quite quickly so 30s-1m exposures can be too long and diminish the effect.
Shoot raw so you can fiddle later but generally i use tungsten white balance for night photography, it knocks out any yellow/orange from street lights and gives a more blue, moon lit scene, all the pics below are straight from the camera as jpgs, i'm too lazy to post process.
First was a weak aurora, more or less invisible to the eye, the rest fairly strong and easily visible, the second one visible just be shielding eyes from the street light and was quite dynamic.
f2.8 20s 1600 iso
Shield the lens from headlights, but don't sweat if a car drives past, it can light paint the foreground with wonderful results, or take a bright torch!
f2.8 10s 1600 iso
f2.8 10s 1600iso
f2.8 10s 1600 iso
f2.8 50s 200 iso
All Cannon T2i (550d) with Canon 17-55 f2.8 lense
Edited by ViperDave on Saturday 15th November 23:47
Also worth adding your email address to some of the services that offer notification e.g. http://aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/alerts
crmcatee said:
Also worth adding your email address to some of the services that offer notification e.g. http://aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/alerts
Already done that to the Finnish services out there.Not hoping to see it as thats not why we are there, its just a little break and the OHs folks always go up to Lapland so we are tagging along and if its there, then thats a bonus.
Im more looking forward to trying out the gopro with a snow mobile
You don't necessarily need all the fancy gear to capture the Aurora. This one was shot with my compact camera resting on the back of my car when we unexpectedly saw the lights while travelling back from dinner one night in the Territories last year:
Aurora Borealis by Joel_S1, on Flickr
I don't remember all the camera settings, but the exposure was around 20-30s. As mentioned above, you will be surprised how quickly the light can move around the sky, so going for too long can wash out the whole sky.
Aurora Borealis by Joel_S1, on Flickr
I don't remember all the camera settings, but the exposure was around 20-30s. As mentioned above, you will be surprised how quickly the light can move around the sky, so going for too long can wash out the whole sky.
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