Aurora Northern Lights Tips

[Jo Farrow]

Could anyone give beginners tips about taking photos of the Northern Lights. For Scotland or Scandinavia. Without investing huge amounts of money or carrying loads of kit, can decent images be taken by an amateur?

[frogesque]

Is this for yourself or interest for anyone?

Basically you do need an SLR camera and a reasonable wide angle lens. A shutter cable is pretty essential and you either need a tripod or bean bag to keep the camera stable during long exposures. Bean bags are cheap, light and good if it's windy, tripods are better to get to eye level.

Difficult to give guidance about exposure times as its dependent on quite a few factors including how bright is the aurora, f stop on the lens, the camera's native ISO rating and whether you want to catch fleeting effects or a more general impression.

Obviously you also need to be in the right place at the right time with a clear dark cloudless view to the NW/N/NE. 

Familiarise yourself with the camera and lens, position of buttons or locks for focus and auto/manual. Faffing in the dark with frozen fingers is less than ideal so practice before you set out. You can always take pics of everyday light pollution from a dark place where you live.

Personally I have never tried to take night pics with a mobile or IPad etc. but its always worth experimenting even if its for backup.

I'll post some pics later with a bit more info if you would like or pm me.

[kar999]

As Frog says an SLR camera and tripod will do the job. Physically pressing the shutter will normally cause judder or blur. If you don't have a shutter cable, you can always use the delay on the shutter (like when you press it and run around for group shots before it goes off.) You can also get remote controls for some cameras to do the same thing. 

The SLR doesn't have to be expensive. My old Nikon is 9 years old and still does a great job.

There are a few good websites giving tips. I used to carry a card with a table of ISO and F settings and times for exposures which I printed off one site but have lost it!

Here looks like a good site.

https://photographylife.com/how-to-photograph-the-northern-lights

Edited November 23, 2016 by kar999

[frogesque]

Like kar999, my digi SLR is pretty ancient, a Canon D60 (equivalent of the old Rebel 6MP). Lens used is a wide angle Sigma f20mm, 1.18 EX DG

Old cameras normally have hot spots and dead pixels on the sensor. The way round this is to use a dark frame that will subtract inherrant sensor defects from an exposure. Basically, on a photo shoot you allow the camera to become thermally stable (10-15mins) take an exposure equivalent to the picture you intend to shoot (say 5 seconds) with the lens cap on. You then remove the cap, do your photo shoot and when you have finished you can take another dark frame. Plenty of free software out there that will do the necessary and clean up the immage for you. The one below wasn't cleaned btw.

Not essential but you get far better processing results if you use the camera's native ISO equivalent which will lessen electronic camera noise (usually the lowest setting, mine is 100) and shoot in RAW rather than jpg. Files are much bigger but you keep all the pixel data for processing. Also usefull is one or two fully charged spare batteries and empty flash/SD memory cards. If you are going to Scandinavia expect low temperatures (silly I know!) If its -20C not only will you need to well wrapped up but so does your camera or it may shut down if it gets too cold. Pros use custom themal blankets for cameras but a hot water bottle with warm water and a cover over the camera body works ok.

Focussing can be a problem. Arorae are diffuse so there are no hard lines for autofocus to lock on. Try to take a pic and the focus mechanisim will hunt and refuse to hold. My way round this is to try and get a distant light (Moon or even a bright Venus works but you can use a distant security light to the South of you at a pinch) let the autofocul lock on then switch the auto focus off taking care not to bump the camera when you turn it round.

Exposures are faily simple, I use the internal exposure meteer and bracket the shots taking photos one or two settigs above and below as well as the normal sweet spot. Junk any that are under or over exposed. As I said on the first post, you can't beat getting to know your camera, settings and buttons etc. in the dark before you go. Photography doesn't have to dominate your experience of the occasion, once you are set up and happy, use a cable (Mine is 5m) to just click away while you sit comfortable and warm watching. You can even keep your gloves on!

 

Taken 06 March 2016, Coaltown of Balgonie, Fife. Exposure would have been somewhere between 5 and 8 seconds. If I get the original file I'll give the correct figure

 

Edited November 26, 2016 by frogesque

[Just Before Dawn]

I've not much to add to Frog or Kar's posts, except to say that if you're looking to pick up an DSLR, I've found one where you can focus using 'liveview' (on the screen at the back of the camera) is really useful for infinity focussing, and one with a mirror lock-up function (first press of the shutter lifts the mirror, second press exposes the sensor) really helps reduce motion blur on long exposure.  A lot of entry-level DSLRs have these features now. 

I'm flying to Saariselka in February to photo the Aurora Borealis!