Northern Lights

[Psytrox]

Hello,

This is my first attempt at taking photographing the Northern Lights, in fact its my first successful night photograph :lmao:
Was hoping to get some feed back and some other peoples opinion. I have some technical critics personally, and I want to see if any one else notices them aswell.

So, some comments and critics please.




(Just a quick note, i edited it the photograph on my laptop, I think the screen on my laptop is a bit too "stale" on the colors, so the colors might be completely off, but I'm going to fix that when im on my desktop).

 

[Virgil]

Really nice shot..

 

[HL45]

I hope that once in my life I will get a chance to see and photograph the Northern Lights! Nice work

 

[lambertpix]

Wow. Not sure how I missed this one earlier, but it's really stunning. I love the bluish tone left in the sky at the bottom. The composition is really nice, too -- I especially like the approach of the shorelines on the left & right -- just that little bit of foreground interest gives the photo tons more depth.

It's mighty tough to pick nits on this one, but I feel like there's a tiny bit of tilt (down on the left), and if you'd have been able to position just smidge more of the light so it reflected off the water, too, I think that would've been spectacular, but this is really, really well-executed. You should be proud of this one.

 

[Q4kntmare]

Great shot, I have not been successful doing night photography. I would love if I were ever able to get a shot this nice.

 

[Josh_Houchin]

This is the forth time I have came back to look at this shot. Amazing photo...

 

[IceCanAm]

Beautiful shot

 

[bribrius]

wonderful

 

[annamaria]

Great shot!!

 

[Darko81]

Great shot!

 

[Psytrox]

Thanks for all the great feedback.

The part I was sort of worried about, is when zoomed in at the mountains, they seem slightly out of focus. It's a comprimise that was needed to have a shorter shutterspeed, anything longer I think the northern lights would have been smidged. I think maybe if I could do it again, I'd try to crank up the ISO.

Also the sea on the bottom left is sort of wavey (I think its waves), I would have prefered it looking as smooth as the rest of the sea.

But all together I am very happy with this one. More so after all your possitive feedback

 

[apaflo]

Thanks for all the great feedback.

The part I was sort of worried about, is when zoomed in at the mountains, they seem slightly out of focus. It's a comprimise that was needed to have a shorter shutterspeed, anything longer I think the northern lights would have been smidged. I think maybe if I could do it again, I'd try to crank up the ISO.

Also the sea on the bottom left is sort of wavey (I think its waves), I would have prefered it looking as smooth as the rest of the sea.

But all together I am very happy with this one. More so after all your possitive feedback

There are some obvious problems, but the most significant fact is that you nailed the part that counts! Composition isn't just the aurora itself, but rather the surroundings! And wow did you hit that one on the head!

Your image doesn't include Exif data so it is very hard to say much about the camera configuration, so this may be a mile off. The stars are fuzzy, but basically round. I suspect you used the wide open aperture of your lens? And you may have focused on infinity? (Regardless, better sharpening would help.)

What you should do is stop it down a little. Without knowing which camera I can't suggest an ISO, but you probably can go at least twice whatever you used (I didn't think the noise was bad at all). And then use a shutter speed depending on how bright the aurora is. You don't want to go longer than about 30 seconds, or the stars will be too elongated. Also, if the aurora is moving around, a longer shutter speed will blur the aurora. So something from 1 to 30 seconds, and probably 12 to 20 seconds is about the best.

Regardless, you do not want to shoot wide open, ever. Stop down 1 or 2 stops for the sharpest image, depending on which lens you're using. That might even mean using f/8, but in most cases f/5.6 and if you have a very good lens f/4.

Focusing is more or less another trick. Always use manual focus. You can check charts and so on to determine what the hyperfocal distance is at a given aperture for the focal length, and knowing that, if you focus at any distance farther away than the hyperfocal distance you'll definitely get the aurora in focus. Hence you can focus on the mountains, the distant lights, or even nearby trees or whatever and the image will be in focus from that distance all the way to infinity. Compare that with trying to use autofocus on the aurora itself, or manualy setting focus to infinity and then not having closer objects well focused.

 

[Psytrox]

The exif data is:
ISO 100
18mm
f/4
30 sec
Nikon D7000
Kit lens 18-105mm

My wifes grandmother passed, she's from the north of Norway. I packed light, and was considering not bringing my camera (haven't seen northern lights before, so I was afraid bring the camera might scare it away), in the end I decided to just take one lens, and the kit lens is unfortunately the best all around lens that I have. I borrowed a tripod from her uncle (he's into astronomy). Christmas 2012, I was up there for 3 weeks, and we didn't see any northern lights. Which is one of the irritating things about the northern lights, its rare, and it cant be controlled.


I autofocused on the streetlights by the mountain, and switched it to manual to take the actual picture. The mountain was barely visible, so the autofocus wasnt able to focus on it.

I took some pictures at ISO 400, F/5, 13sec. At ISO 400 it starts getting grainy, but not to the extent of hot pixels. So I think iso 200 could be better. I should spend some more time in manual focus, and learn to trust my own focusing skill.

 

[Bytesback]

Amazing photo!

 

[jsecordphoto]

I shoot wide open pretty much all the time when shooting at night. Shooting at f2.8 is pretty much the norm for astrophotography.

Anyway this looks great! The aurora creates a nice leading line across the frame. I did notice some softness in the mountains, especially on the left of the frame.