Northern Lights

[Grey Owl]

Greetings

Over the past couple of years I have observed some phenomenal displays of the aurora, however, try as I might I have not been able to record this with my camera. Currently I am using a Nikon D200 and have access to a wide range of manual and AF lenses.

It seems that the digital sensor simply does not have adequate sensitivity in very low light conditions. At present I have tried numerous (but incorrect) combinations of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO.

Could anyone provide insight into this situation?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Squidders]

Twice I have seen the northern lights and twice I sort of forgot to take photos...

This site: http://www.alaskaphotographics.com/how_to_photograph_northern_lights.shtml

seems to provide some working settings, not just the vague "wide aperture" or "long exposure".

 

[Wayland]

I can give you some good advice on what not to do.

Do not rely on the image on the cameras monitor to judge your exposure.

I was treated to a great display a couple of years ago in Lofoten and botched the job badly in my excitement.

I was working on a tripod which was good and had the aperture wide open and the lens focussed at infinity, also good.

The problem was I was working so fast I trusted the image on the cameras display instead of checking the histogram. I neglected to consider that because I was working in the dark, the image looked much brighter than it really was.

The results were underexposed and very noisy as a result. This was the best of the bunch but doesn't really stand up to much enlargement.

It's a mistake I'll never make again.

 

[hedgepig]

The northern lights are a very difficult thing to photograph well. Low light levels subtly shifting in both hue and position ... how hard does it get ?!?!?

 

[jasons]

Would love to see the lights