Equipment for shooting northern lights.

rick448

rick448

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I am visited nag Lapland in December for a Santa trip with my little girl. While there I am hoping to capture some NL shots. Can someone please recommend what gear I should take from the following.

5D Mkiii or 7D Mkiii

16-35L F4 , 24-70 F2.8 Mkiii, 70-200L 2.8 Mkiii, 100-400L Mkii, I have a few primes, but I figure the zooms would be more flexible and baggage friendly.

I doubt I'll be able to pack a tripod, so any advice would be most welcome.

Thanks.
 
You'll definitely need a tripod. Think 15 - 30sec exposures. The 5D would be my choice and either of the wide angle zooms. Have a great time and take plenty of warm clothing and spare batteries; the cold seeps in when you're standing around out there.
 
granddad john said:
You'll definitely need a tripod. Think 15 - 30sec exposures. The 5D would be my choice and either of the wide angle zooms. Have a great time and take plenty of warm clothing and spare batteries; the cold seeps in when you're standing around out there.
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Thanks, I might have to look at some sort of lightweight tripod then, as this is a family trip mainly for my 3 year old to visit Santa. We get provided warm suits, I also have some Canada Goose clothing so should be warm enough. :)

This is the trip we are doing.

https://www.santaslapland.com/choose-your-break/santas-magic/
 
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What primes do you have, aperture and focal length are going to be key for getting the most out of the NL.

Find a way to pack a tripod
 
:plusone: for some sort of support. As wide and as fast as you've got in terms of lenses, especially far North where the aurora can cover the whole sky above you rather than being a thin smear on the Northern horizon. I'd probably have the 16-35 on the 5 and the 24-70 on the 7 to cover most focal length options while removing the need to change lenses (cold and dark as well as condensation possibilities make lens changing inadvisable!). Ramp up the ISO as far as you're comfortable going. Cross everything for at least one clear night that coincides with a strong aurora showing but don't be too disappointed if it's 100% cloud cover or the aurora is a no-show.
 
Jim_Tod said:
What primes do you have, aperture and focal length are going to be key for getting the most out of the NL.

Find a way to pack a tripod
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I have the following L primes.

50 1.2
85 1.2
135 2
180 3.5 Macro
 
I’d look at the 16-35 on the 5d. You’re looking at up to 30-15 seconds exposure depending which end you’re at for comp.

I’d put the 50 1.2 on the 7d. You’re looking at about 6 seconds exposure but with over 3 more stops of aperture so a lot more light available

Might be worth thinking about acquiring a samyang 14mm 2.8. Either used or new and then sell on return. You could apply this logic to any lens just that the samyang has a good rep on astro stuff.
 
There are numerous guides (google) written by people who have actually been there and done it that might help
 
I saw this last September in Norway. I had a 16-35 f2.8 then and I wanted it to be even wider as it does cover the sky, if you are lucky. I went out with a pro tour and he suggested for my 5D4 that I set the iso to 3200, wide open. This kept exposures shorter and stopped to a degree some of the blurry blobby stars. I wish you the best night ever - we found it very moving as well.
 
5d for northern lights as lower noise it will also be better for family pics as its dark there 85% of the time. Take your 16-35L F4 , 24-70 F2.8 Mkiii lens.

Other things a tripod, wide low f stop lens would be good, cable release also loads of warm clothes and a lot of luck... We have been to Finland the last 2 years in December and have only managed to catch the smallest glimpse of the northern lights :( but Finland was fantastic.

zip food bags are a good idea to put kit in to reduce condensation when moving from inside to outside.

What primes do you have?
 
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5d for sure then it’d be a tough choice between the 16-35mm f4 and 24-70mm f2.8. I think I’d be more inclined to sacrifice some width in favour of the extra light gathering of the f2.8.
 
Don't use a UV filter on any of the lenses you use when taking photos of the NL. Apparently something to do with the light frequency of the Aurora Borealis can clash with the UV filter and can cause a Newton's rings type effect on your images. Thought I'd better mention this just in case. (y)
 
Mr Badger said:
Don't use a UV filter on any of the lenses you use when taking photos of the NL. Apparently something to do with the light frequency of the Aurora Borealis can clash with the UV filter and can cause a Newton's rings type effect on your images. Thought I'd better mention this just in case. (y)
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I was going to say "surely not" - in fact I did, but then thought better of it - so I did some research. You're absolutely right.

Here is one example; here is another. A detailed explanation is given here:
With my Nikon lenses I have found that long exposures result in concentric circles showing up in the center of the images when I use a filter of any kind. Nikon says this is due to the high reflectivity of the aurora. Thanks to the University of Alaska forecaster, Chuck Deehr, the explanation follows. "These are interference fringes due to the parallel faces of the filter and to the narrow spectral emission at 5577 Angstroms in the aurora. That green, atomic oxygen emission line is the strongest emission in the aurora near our film and eye peak sensitivity, so it shows up first when there is any device in the optical path which sorts out the spectral emissions." So, don't use filters!
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Wow. Without a filter you'll be alright because lenses don't have any parallel faces within them.
 
Never doubt the words of the badger... well, some of the time anyway! ;) Joking aside, I hope this info is of use to Rick, it's a long way to go to find out the hard way!
 
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Many thanks all. Very helpful.
 
rick448 said:
I doubt I'll be able to pack a tripod, so any advice would be most welcome.
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Just to say that when I went to Iceland the way I managed to fit my tripod in (Manfroto 055) was to remove the centre column - this reduced the length sufficiently to allow it to fit diagonally in the suitcase (with the separate centre column & head beside it).
The tripod is one of the few bits I was happy to go in the hold (battery chargers were another).
 
StewartR said:
I was going to say "surely not" - in fact I did, but then thought better of it - so I did some research. You're absolutely right.

Here is one example; here is another. A detailed explanation is given here:


Wow. Without a filter you'll be alright because lenses don't have any parallel faces within them.
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Fascinating, thanks Stewart (y) :)

And as an aside, I'm doubly grateful for that knoweldge as I saw exactly the same effect when testing a load of ND filters for work recently. For some tests I used a fluorescent softbox and with some filters (only the ten stops ones using the new evaporated metal ND process) I got those concentric rings in the middle. I had no idea what it was, never seen it before, but noticed it only happened with the fluorescent softbox which has a tall monochromatic spike in the green spectrum.
 
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I bet years ago filter manufacturers would have had a best seller on their hands if they'd made a 'Newton's rings' filter to go with the centre spot, tobacco grad, rainbow filters, etc. How times change. :D
 
Definitely need a tripod. I’d use the 5D and acquire a Samyang 24mm 1.4. Its sharp wide open and as a manual lens, relatively inexpensive. Focus with live view x10. This will allow reasonable ISO and shutter speed under 10s to avoid star trails.

If you can pack a long plate in case you want to go wider as this will help getting a good panorama you can stitch later.

Final thought practice on some warm nights in the summer, including pano stitching so you don’t loose time or get frustrated on the trip.

Good luck!
 
newbie1 said:
Definitely need a tripod. I’d use the 5D and acquire a Samyang 24mm 1.4. ..... If you can pack a long plate in case you want to go wider as this will help getting a good panorama you can stitch later.
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Personally I don't think 24mm is going to be wide enough, and personally I wouldn't want to faff around shooting panoramas. If you have a wider lens, you don't need to be changing the composition for every shot, and you can spend more time watching the aurora with your family rather than attending to the camera. YMMV.
newbie1 said:
Final thought practice on some warm nights in the summer, including pano stitching so you don’t loose time or get frustrated on the trip.
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That's a good idea. Practice focusing on stars, and make sure you can use the essential controls on your camera (shutter speed, aperture, ISO, etc) when it's pitch dark. And you could also test your glove strategy.
 
A fast lens around 2.8 is pretty much essential but focal length really depends on what sort of photos you want to take. If you have something like a 14mm (I used a 15mm in Iceland recently) then you need some strong foreground otherwise it's just a photo of sky, albeit if you get a good display, dramatic sky. If you're wanting to include the family something around 24mm will work better.

Tripod is essential, settings are typically wide open aperture, high iso and between 6 - 15 seconds.. longer exposures can lose the detail in a really good aurora display, if it's pretty weak then 20-25secs can drag more colour out of the sky but if you have stars you run the risk of trails instead of pinpoints

simon
 
8mm f/4 was wide enough to get the whole sky in and fast enough to give 2s @f/8 at ISO 3200. D750. The dark blobs are frozen droplets of water - Gulfoss is just under the horizon and the lens was pointed almost straight up... Lesson learned!

GN1_1348.jpg
 
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