My first ever glimpse of the Northern Lights and had no idea how to capture them well photographically, but was absolutely delighted to point my camera above the neighbouring houses from my garden to the north and see these.
I live in a town centre full of light pollution from street lamps, traffic and homes, so did not think it likely they would ever be visible here. Diary shot for me!
Any technical tips on how to do it better should I ever be lucky enough to see them again would be most welcome. These were handheld, f5.6, ISO was auto, focussed on infinity and switched off the auto focus or it wouldn't take at all.
Oh, Casa, I am SO happy for you! I remember how disappointed you were not to see them earlier this year. I think you captured them quite well, considering the light pollution you mention! I have no advice because I have never even attempted such a capture! Kudos to you! :-)
Fabulous -they were here in Maine last night and I didn't see it. Not sure it was down here in Southern Maine. I envy you I haven;t seen since I was a child.
This is a great first step! I'll put more information in my thread, but basically, I couldn't see your EXIF information to know your settings. It will depend on your camera, but it looks to me like you needed to let in more light -- lower your f-stop if you can, use the fastest wide angle lens possible, raise your ISO and then get rid of noise in LR or Topaz DeNoise, increase your shutter speed (which would mean your stars will have little 'tails' the longer the exposure. Your shots are well done, just a little dark. And the big thing is you have good composition -- trees framed the lights well. And you've shown the different colors in the sky.
You saw them, you captured them, you will look at these pictures in years to come and smile! Although personally I think they're fab and would be well chuffed were they mine!
Well done on your capture. I have never seen them & apparently they were very visible round here. I walked to the end if the road but saw nothing then Cathy posted fab pictures from he4 house….she is higher up in the country than me. Think the cloud may stop it tonight but if anyone is posting some I must make an effort & go look.
Oh well done! These are great. I've never seen the Northern Lights, and like you, I wouldn't have a clue what to do! I'd probably waste precious moments trying to get it right and missing everything! Ha ha!
what a wonderful moment Casa' ...I missed our display last night ..I just nipped into the garden ...none to be seen tonight with the naked eye or camera
So exciting to see the aurora in the northern and southern hemispheres. These are great, especially considering you were in the middle of a town. My tip is to use a tripod or rest the camera on a non-moving surface and try various long shutter speeds. For my camera I use somewhere around 10-15 seconds and I'd say it's near impossible to hold the camera still for that long (although I find it hard to hold the camera steady, full stop!). The lens I use only goes down to f4 and last night I had to use ISO 640. I still needed to edit my photos to lighten them up a bit but I didn't want to increase the ISO any further. I also ran them through Camera Raw's Denoise. P.S. I also manually focused on a star using a magnified view on the back screen because there was nothing in the foreground, and then left it set at that. :)
@nickspicsnz Thanks, Nick! Brilliant to hear how you achieved yours. I have been making notes on my phone of what Taffy said, my friend Mark and now you. Excellent. So very helpful, thank you.
October 12th, 2024
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