Caught some of the Aurora last night!

jsecordphoto · Dec 8, 2013

I had heard of solar activity all week but didn't expect to see anything in my area. I took this in central New Hampshire last night around 10pm. I've been going out every clear night lately shooting the night sky and I've been learning a lot, not completely happy with my photos yet but it's been a great experience

yo13dawg · Dec 9, 2013

Lucky that you can see them from your area. Would love to see it with a stronger foreground. You shoot vertical for any particular reason?

jsecordphoto · Dec 10, 2013

I did some more work on this photo after downloading David Kingham's lightroom presets which helped me bring out the foreground detail considerably. I would've liked to put something a little more interesting in the foreground but I wasn't even expecting to be able to see the aurora so far south, so I had to work with what I had. I shot vertically because the moon was to my left and was giving me a lot of lens flare. It did shine a lot of light onto my foreground though, even though it was only a sliver, which helped.

I'm planning on grabbing the rokinon 14mm 2.8 in a few weeks which will really help for shooting at night. I used my canon 15mm 2.8 fisheye for this rather than my tokina 12-24 f4 because I wanted that extra stop, the fisheye is super sharp but I hate the distortion it gives on the horizon

TJNY · Dec 17, 2013

You lucky devil!! I wish it came down here. Actually, it came down a little south of Albany, N.Y. a little while back. A video was posted on Youtube showing it.
Nice job!

weepete · Dec 17, 2013

Nice!

paigew · Dec 17, 2013

Amazing!

jsecordphoto · Dec 17, 2013

TJNY said:
You lucky devil!! I wish it came down here. Actually, it came down a little south of Albany, N.Y. a little while back. A video was posted on Youtube showing it.
Nice job!

Yeah I couldn't believe I caught it so far south. I just ordered the rokinon 14mm 2.8 which should be here by the end of the month, just in time for the end of the lunar phase and perfect time to go shooting at night...can't wait