The northern lights??

[jinjohninjoh]

Hi all, apperntly there's a possibility that we could get s glimpse of the northern lights tonight if we are lucky and my question is what would be the best way to capture it? If I see it that is haha
Settings are my main worry.

Cheers,
Sam

[Benjy]

Sam,just checked aurora watch,storm reduced to minor activity tonight,cancelled for Thursday night....

[jinjohninjoh]

Sam,just checked aurora watch,storm reduced to minor activity tonight,cancelled for Thursday night....

Damn! Well I may go out and give it ago and see if I can get anything but if not I'll just wait till it happens again haha

[Benjy]

Sam,google aurora borealis then open softserve news they give regular updates,good luck

[Thlayle]

Sam,

In case the chance comes again, and it will eventually, here are some ideas:

1) ISO - normally for shots of the night sky, I use 1600 or 3200 but with the aurora you can toy with the ISO quite a bit more. I would start trying out shooting at 200 ISO. This of course gives you less noise to contend with later.

2) Shutter speed: at the lower ISO levels, 200 or 400, you may want to go anywhere from one minute and longer. At higher ISO levels, you will need much less time, 5 seconds or less.

3) Aperture: wide open as possible. I use a 14mm lens with f/2.8 in almost all night shooting, certainly for any where the subject is the sky itself, such as the aurora or the Milky Way.

4) A quick note on exposure time: you get star trails on longer exposures, and with longer focal length this will happen sooner rather than later. At 14mm, I can get 25 to 30 seconds without seeing streaking in the stars.

5) Set up: I know you are mainly interested in settings but there's a few things I will point out about catching the aurora. First, on any given appearance of them, the timing is very unpredictable. So if you can, spend the time and go out to your chosen location & wait. Second, low on the horizon is the norm when I look for the aurora to appear but I am at less than 45º and you I think are more like 53º. Still, low is more likely and thus you need lots of open sky, a very far horizon view. Finally, light pollution is still an issue with the aurora, so find your darkest sky location of course.

6) A technique idea for interest: take multiple exposures, aiming to get the aurora in some and the foreground in others, and then composite the landscape & sky in post-processing.

Below is a shot from mid-March here in Michigan (USA). I used 200 ISO for 59 seconds (manually timed, no intervalometer -- I was going for an even minute). And I did not follow my own advice for exposing for foreground and sky so there's a lot of noise in the foreground. I forced that area in post-processing just to bring out more detail for this example. Also, my shots from that night were done very hastily. I did NOT go out to a spot I picked ahead of time and just dashed out to a nearby spot with the darkest sky. The aurora only lasted about 2 hours total, so I didn't have a lot of time to try out different things, such as settings and point of view framing.

[Benjy]

Randy,been trying to set up for aurora borealis but pictures are very bright almost white,set at M mode,Bulb,f2.8,various ISO,various exposure times,any help would be most appreciated....

[Thlayle]

Randy,been trying to set up for aurora borealis but pictures are very bright almost white,set at M mode,Bulb,f2.8,various ISO,various exposure times,any help would be most appreciated....

Hi Bernard,

If you read through my comments to Sam, and nothing there seemed to point to a solution, I think it has to be an issue of light pollution so that is my first suggestion: get to a good dark sky location. The International Dark Sky Association list some sites near you, including a dark sky park at the Isle of Coll (see http://www.darksky.org/international...es/communities)

As for settings, by their very nature, I think the aurora call for a very long exposure, a minute or longer. This means bulb mode most likely and given the burning out of the sky you describe, then I think ISO of 100 or 200 along with a higher aperture should work. If you still are burning out the sky with something like ISO 100, f/11 for some short exposure (something under 30 seconds), then I go back to my first suggestion -- a better dark sky location.

Another idea: something I've never tried but might be worth a try (more experienced photographers than I could say) is to add an ND filter if your lens will accommodate one.

The other consideration is star trails: if you don't mind them, then the very long exposures should work in the right location. If you do mind them, you will need to stick to shorter exposures, take many shots with the exact same framing, and combine the images in post-processing.

I hope these ideas work for you.

Regards,

Randy

[Benjy]

Randy,thanks for reply regarding aurora,most helpful,hopefully I can give settings a try on Sunday night if Skies are clear,another solar storm forecast for weekend,thanks again much appreciated. Benjy