Asher Kelman said:
Steve,
Could you describe a little on where and how you came to take the pictures and what are the parameters in predictability, timing, duration, intensity, change in shape. Are these in the USA even?
Asher
Hello,
Some thoughts. First of all, while I like to see Northern Lights and have photographed them quite a few times, I'm just your average joe photographer, so if others here are more knowledgable or I state something incorrectly please feel free to post corrections.
I like to watch spaceweather.com for solar flare activity. No guarantee of good auroras, but it will surely help your odds. In general they are at the highest levels around the spring and autumn equinox, but again this is highly variable.
Aperture can be wide open, focused at infinity unless you have a very well lit foregound which will need to be clearly in focus. In general all the issues of sharpness and resolution incurred with landscape photography are much less important as the focus of the image is a fast moving blob of light and won't be sharp whatever one does. That being said, just as with any good landscape photography there must be attention to all elements of the picture, and so some type of interesting foreground is needed. With this picture I was in the middle of nowhere and didn't have much to choose from, but "saw" a flame coming from the tree and so tried to make something of that. But a picture of just the lights won't fly. My best images are on a still lake where there is some reflection of the lights on the water, although silhouettes work well too.
When they are really going I like have an exposure in the 10-30 sec range. If there is some form or shape that you want to capture it likely will be gone or very different in 30 sec, hence the "hurry". With today's low noise digital sensors, this makes going to iso 400 or 800 very reasonable if needed.
The lights might last 5 minutes or all night. It might stay clear or a cloud bank might roll in - so no telling as far as duration.
The ions interacting with CO2 give more of a greenish light, and I think it is NO2 which gives the bluer lights, but I'm not positive about this.
Tripod, MLU, cable release of course.
It is often very cold when shooting these - bring along extra batteries and keep them close to your body. Also remember that a cold camera will fog up when brought back into a warm place. If you are using a car to change locations during a light show keep the windows open. Put the camera / lens, etc. in a zip lock bag when you come back in and let it warm up for a while (I just wait until it feels room temp through the bag.) Ziplock makes huge zip lock bags - enough to hold a 1 series body with a 500/4 IS - I use these.
While I usually auroras in northern Minnesota, this picture was taken in northern Manitoba, as a camp in the middle of nowhere.
Hope that's useful - feel free to ask other details if I've left something out.
