Aurora Borealis questions

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Adrian_london

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Adrian
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I have a few questions about photographing the Aurora. I went on an Aurora tour and the tour guide took some very nice photos of the Aurora.

1) How come, when using a 'proper' camera, the photos look like they have been taken in the daylight?
2) How come the photos seem to look better than looking at them with the naked eye?
3) Which camera/lens would you recommend for taking photos of the Aurora?
4) I'm a total novice, so the chances are, I'm not going to buy any equipment to answers to question number three but I'm just curious.
5) What kind of settings should be used to photograph the Aurora?
 
Sky said:
Hi Adrian, welcome to TP. :)

Please don't take this the wrong way, but if you're not looking for specific help from fellow photographers have you never heard of a search engine?

Five seconds of typing presented me with enough reading to satisfy all your questions, plus a whole lot more: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=how+to+photo+aurora+borealis&ia=web
Click to expand...
Regarding the answers, I did find information on certain websites but I would have preferred to get opinions from this forum. Regarding which camera/lens, there are lots of different websites giving opinions on different cameras. Again, I was just curious about what people in this forum would recommend.
 
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Adrian_london said:
I have a few questions about photographing the Aurora. I went on an Aurora tour and the tour guide took some very nice photos of the Aurora.

1) How come, when using a 'proper' camera, the photos look like they have been taken in the daylight?
2) How come the photos seem to look better than looking at them with the naked eye?
3) Which camera/lens would you recommend for taking photos of the Aurora?
4) I'm a total novice, so the chances are, I'm not going to buy any equipment to answers to question number three but I'm just curious.
5) What kind of settings should be used to photograph the Aurora?
Click to expand...
Hey,
Probably can't answer all your questions.. but gonna write what I've done the few times I've been up north...

- I used my Sony a7sIII on the last trip - prefer it to the a7rIV.. as the 7s in my opinion is better at lowlight.
And I am hardly gonna print them to the size of our bedroom wall (even if the wife would want that) so the 7s is OK for me.
- Lenses .. I used 15mm f2.8 and 14-24mm f2.8 lens

- As for settings - varied them a lot as there were some nights with full moon and others were totally dark.
Mostly the shutter speed tended to be few seconds - but did some longer exposures as well.
On the f-stop - between the f2.8 and maybe f5.6 at the most.
ISO on the moonlight nights was surprisingly low on the 1600-2000 ... on the dark nights, considerably higher.

I am no Aurora photographer - just a sports photographer who has few weeks of holiday in Lapland most years.. and I enjoy watching the aurora more than I do enjoy photographing them.
So the photos I take are just 'snapshots'.. mostly I just lay flat on the snow and look up, much more rewarding :)
 
Adrian_london said:
I have a few questions about photographing the Aurora. I went on an Aurora tour and the tour guide took some very nice photos of the Aurora.

1) How come, when using a 'proper' camera, the photos look like they have been taken in the daylight?
2) How come the photos seem to look better than looking at them with the naked eye?
3) Which camera/lens would you recommend for taking photos of the Aurora?
4) I'm a total novice, so the chances are, I'm not going to buy any equipment to answers to question number three but I'm just curious.
5) What kind of settings should be used to photograph the Aurora?
Click to expand...
You Generally want the widest lens you've got with a Aperture with the lowest F-stop you can.

Remove any Filters off your lens

Set the Camera to Daylight White Balance.

Try to keep the shutterspeed under a 10 seconds, I tried 4 & 2 Seconds, to keep the Aurora Sharp

Then just play with the ISO to get the best image you can.

Manual Focus to Infinity / Focus to a very distant object

Last October I was in Norway and managed to catch them but only had a 50mm Lens and was only just starting to get into Photography.
IMG_3557.jpg

Good Luck and Have Fun
 
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stuart2000999 said:
You Generally want the widest lens you've got with a Aperture with the lowest F-stop you can.

Remove any Filters off your lens

Set the Camera to Daylight White Balance.

Try to keep the shutterspeed under a 10 seconds, I tried 4 & 2 Seconds, to keep the Aurora Sharp

Then just play with the ISO to get the best image you can.

Manual Focus to Infinity / Focus to a very distant object

Last October I was in Norway and managed to catch them but only had a 50mm Lens and was only just starting to get into Photography.
View attachment 378838

Good Luck and Have Fun
Click to expand...
Thank you for the information. I loved it. If/When I go back, I might splurge and get some decent equipment. Who knows!!!
 
Adrian_london said:
I have a few questions about photographing the Aurora. I went on an Aurora tour and the tour guide took some very nice photos of the Aurora.

1) How come, when using a 'proper' camera, the photos look like they have been taken in the daylight?
2) How come the photos seem to look better than looking at them with the naked eye?
3) Which camera/lens would you recommend for taking photos of the Aurora?
4) I'm a total novice, so the chances are, I'm not going to buy any equipment to answers to question number three but I'm just curious.
5) What kind of settings should be used to photograph the Aurora?
Click to expand...

1 & 2 have been answered already.
3 whichever body you have that handles high ISOs best with as fast and wide a lens as you have. I found a D750 with a 14mm f/2.8 about right but I also used a 50mm f/1.8 and an 8mm f/4.
5 assorted! We were lucky enough to be in Iceland when even the locals were going out to see the aurora and saying "Wow!" so I got some shots as fast as 3 seconds but went up as far as 30 to get a more curtain like effect. My preference is for the faster shots, even if they do only record the green streak well - that matches my memory of the event.

TBH. after getting a selection of shots in the bag, I acted like a local - looked up and said "Wow!" a lot!!!
 
Read all the answers above and...
In dim light your eyes do not see colour very well. Rods and cones whereas the camera's sensor has only one type of sensor so colour information is there regardless of brightness.
Shortish exposure to avoid blurring and the usual low light settings.
This is 8 seconds from Gairloch last September.IMG_7395.jpg
 
I'm a member of a couple of aurora groups on facebook, the first thing i would say is to concider your foreground. most people just seem to take photos of the sky. Just the sky, no foreground and no context, Of they go to a beach so you just get a witish sea and...sky.

Foreground is really important in these type of photos and that brings me to my first point.

Take the foreground shot seperate and then combine it with the sky shot - that way you get a correctly exposed sky and an "almost" daylight looking foreground. The foreground exposure can be whatever ISO, Aperture and exposure length you need to capture more light than you can see with your own eyes

These 2 were in orkney a couple of years ago.5G4A2969-Edit-Edit.jpg5G4A2889-Edit-Pano.jpg
 
Just a few things to add to these excellent answers.
Aperture, my lens was high quality f/1.4. If I photographed auroras at f1.4 there would be noticeable coma in the corners even if the focus is good. My go-to for Northern lights was 2.8 which still give a little coma, but hardly noticeable. My best ever stars were shot at f/8. You can do this if the aurora is bright & you camera can handle high iso.

Foreground can be properly exposed with the magic cloth technique. IMHO this is the best method for preserving stars & a properly exposed foreground.
The picture below was captured at f/4, iso800, 227sec! The sky was only exposed for 20 seconds.
CloseEncounters.jpg
 
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