Tips/suggestions for aurora photography

I

insomniac

Suspended / Banned
Messages
172
Edit My Images
No
Hello,

I find shooting the snow a bit tricky generally, so would appreciate any tips suggestions for both snow/ice and the aurora. I'm planning to use a Nikon D90 with a 10-24mm cranked up to either 800, or if necessary, 1600 ISO. Any suggestions about speeds/f-stops/exposure settings would be much appreciated!

Apart from the general rules of wide aperture / slow shutter speed / high ISO, I was wondering if there were any opinions on choice of exposure compensation and white balance? And any tips/suggestions for when the moon is bright?

Thank you in advance.
 
Exposure compensation doesn't really come into it as you will almost certainly be shooting manual and experimenting. I would suggest RAW is a must so white balance doesn't really matter you can adjust it for effect afterwards.

One thing I've read is to ensure you have the blown highlights warning set up so when you review on screen any blown highlights blink as you really want to avoid these as it will be the aurora that blows.

Other than that, read the guides and advice online and have a practice shooting the sky outside before you go. Make sure your familiar with the what you will want to adjust and how to do it before you go so you can work quickly if required.
 
The link given by Willo is excellent and well worth reading
A brief summary of what to do is :

Set camera up on tripod
Attach cable release
Set camera to manual
Set lens focus to manual
Focus manually on a bright star using live view
Set ISO to 1600
Set lens wide open
Shoot a shot for 10 seconds
Review image taken and adjust exposure time to make image brighter or darker as appropriate
Enjoy !!

This is one taken by me and used by NASA on their web site

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1308/auroraemeteors_boardman_4591.jpg

Hope this helps
James
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top