Photographing the Aurora

[BORDER REIVER]

Can any of you photographers who have taken wonderful pictures of the Northern Lights, give me some tips on how you managed this. Is a tripod necessary? and what length of exposure?

I have 2 compact digital cameras, one of which will operate in temperatures of down to -10c.

Thanks for any help.

[SarniaLo]

To best photograph the Northern Lights, you have to be able to modify the lens aperture and the shutter opening time, which I'm not sure you can do on all compact cameras (but maybe on yours?) and also disable the autofocus. A tripod is very helpful.

I have a SLR camera and I used the instructions that were given on board :

- a lens as wide as possible (I bought a 14mm lens just for that and it still was not wide enough sometimes! ;) )

- with an aperture opening as big as possible (which means a small number : my lens opens at 1/2.8), which has to be set at this maximum aperture

- set ISO to no more than 400 (800 if your camera is really good, but you quickly get "noise" in the dark part of the shot)

- set white balance to Automatic

- disable autofocus and manually set the focus to infinity

- set aperture time to 3 to 5s (depending on the opening of the lens, the ISO setting, and the intensity of the aurora). It's because of this long time that the tripod comes in handy (and if you have a remote control, you can take the pictures while leaving your hands in your pocket, which is good because it's cold! But even if the camera is stable the ships move during this time so you still get a bit of "blur", not too bad since what you are photographing is very far away).

I had my best shots with this configuration.

 

That being said, if you don't have a choice and your camera cannot do all this, then try with higher ISO and a shorter exposure time, while holding the camera close to your body to minimize movement. The trick is to try to get some light on the picture but not too much (too much light = noisy background and bright green aurora with no details). So play around if you can.

 

Most important : remember that auroras don't really look the same in pictures than in reality (in reality they often appear less bright, but they move, sometimes very fast). So try not to miss too much on the experience by trying to take pictures if you find it's getting too tricky.

 

I hope it makes sense, I might not have the exact technical words.

 

Here are some shots from my last trip. On the first one particularly you may see what I mean by background noise.

 

 

 

 

 

[BORDER REIVER]

Thanks for that info SarniaLo - very useful indeed. if I can get just one photo as good as any of yours, I'll be very happy.

I realise that my Panasonic TZ8 will be useless for this task as it has only a 1/3.3 lens, even though it has 4 choices of shutter speed for night shots, of up to 60 seconds.

My Olympus TG1 should be OK as it has a "Night Scene" setting that makes use of the 1/2.0 lens and up to 4 seconds exposure time. I cannot disable the autofocus, but the automatic night settings will probably be correct. I don't have a remote control, but using the timer should prevent shake. The lens is 25mm equivalent.

I have bought a very cheap (but extremely light, for air travel) tripod and have made a hook to hang a weighted bag under the centre, for stability.

I'll still take both cameras as the Leica lens on the Olympus is better for daylight shots, even though that camera isn't freeze-proof.

[digitl]

The last time I did this I was using a Panasonic bridge camera on a small tripod. Exposures of 30 to 40 seconds at f2.8 with the ISO set to 400 got me some reasonable images. I'm hoping to improve on them next week with a Canon 5D3!

[SarniaLo]

Exposures of 30 to 40 seconds at f2.8 with the ISO set to 400 got me some reasonable images.

Are you sure about the exposure time? It seems really long (the longer I tried I think is 10 to 15s, most of the time it's around 5s). Maybe it depends on the camera/lens.

I hope you have numerous occasion to try again on your next trip! Let us know when you come back. I wish you a wonderful trip.

[digitl]

Are you sure about the exposure time? It seems really long (the longer I tried I think is 10 to 15s, most of the time it's around 5s). Maybe it depends on the camera/lens.

I hope you have numerous occasion to try again on your next trip! Let us know when you come back. I wish you a wonderful trip.

 

When I saw your reference to 3s - 5s I checked the EXIFs as I remembered much longer exposures and they are mainly 30s - 40s with the shortest being 25s. The aurora were not especially bright so that may be the difference.

 

Thanks for the good wishes and I'm looking forward to checking next week!

[digitl]

When I saw your reference to 3s - 5s I checked the EXIFs as I remembered much longer exposures and they are mainly 30s - 40s with the shortest being 25s. The aurora were not especially bright so that may be the difference.

 

Thanks for the good wishes and I'm looking forward to checking next week!

 

We saw the lights twice: nothing exceptional or very bright, but they were there. I refuse to say we saw them on the occasions another traveller claimed when there was nothing visible by eye, but she could 'see' a vague green haze on her camera's LCD!

 

By way of camera settings, I've scanned Hurtigruten's recommendations...

[BORDER REIVER]

We saw the lights twice: nothing exceptional or very bright, but they were there. I refuse to say we saw them on the occasions another traveller claimed when there was nothing visible by eye, but she could 'see' a vague green haze on her camera's LCD!

Thanks for the scanned information, very useful.

After seeing your discussions with SarniaLo about settings, I tried an experiment with both cameras in a darkened room, with only the faint glow from a street light showing through the curtains.

I first tried my Panasonic on it's "Starry Sky" setting, at 15sec, 30 sec and 60 sec. The camera selected ISO 80 and aperture of 3.3 each time and even with 60 secs, the photo is so dark that I cannot see anything other than the shape of the window area.

My Olympus has only one setting - "Night Sky", although it's got a maximum aperture of f:2, compared with f:3.3 on the Panasonic.

The timing for night sky is fixed at 4.0 sec and the camera selected f2.8 and ISO 800. With this photo, I could make out things in the room that I couldn't with my eyes.

I think that the Olympus camera should do the job OK, especially as it'll be easier to keep it steady for 4 seconds than for longer than that.

I know I'll not get better photos that I would with a DSLR, but these are all I've got.

[digitl]

Does your Panasonic not have a 'Manual' setting? [Edit: it does.]

 

Or the Olympus? Though it's getting reasonably close to what you are looking for. [Edit: it doesn't, though it does have Custom modes. Might they be useful?]

 

A tripod is really useful in improving results. If you don't have one, have a look at getting a Gorillapod. They're small, light and reasonably inexpensive, and you can fix them to the ship (not the outside railing!!).

Edited November 10, 2013 by digitl

[BORDER REIVER]

Does your Panasonic not have a 'Manual' setting? [Edit: it does.]

 

Or the Olympus? Though it's getting reasonably close to what you are looking for. [Edit: it doesn't, though it does have Custom modes. Might they be useful?]

 

A tripod is really useful in improving results. If you don't have one, have a look at getting a Gorillapod. They're small, light and reasonably inexpensive, and you can fix them to the ship (not the outside railing!!).

Thanks again, you got me thinking and I've looked at the options you suggested.

The Panasonic manual settings don't give full manual control - I set it to ISO 1600, but then the camera chose 8 seconds exposure and the photo is still poor.

The custom modes on the Olympus give very little control, other than a few pre-programmed options.

I do have a mini gorillapod and it's too small to be any use, but I did buy a very cheap (because I don't use them normally) and extremely light (for air travel) tripod. I can hang a weight under it for stability. I tried the Olympus again this evening on the very faint remains of a sunset in an otherwise starry sky and it gave a pretty decent photo. I'll also do some more testing when I'm out in the dark skies of the countryside this winter. I think the Olympus is the camera for any Northern Lights shows and for very cold conditions, but the Leica lens on the Panasonic is best for other conditions.

Thanks again, you've given great advice. Bring on the Aurora Borealis:)

[digitl]

The Panasonic manual settings don't give full manual control

 

Have a look at pages 58 and 97 of the User Manual.

[BORDER REIVER]

Have a look at pages 58 and 97 of the User Manual.

 

Thanks again. I found and downloaded a manual as I've mislaid mine. I can set the shutter speed OK, but really it's the f 3.3 lens that's the problem. To get a decent exposure of something like Northern Lights, it would need a long exposure and then there would probably be blur from ship movement (unless I was ashore or the ship was docked).

The f 2.0 lens on the Olympus should give me a reasonable photo at a fixed 4 seconds and ISO800. The Olympus camera also has a "Low Light" setting which gives a very similar exposure to the "Night Scene" one, but the shutter speed, aperture and ISO settings are all variable according to conditions.

Your input has been invaluable, as it's actually got me thinking about what my cameras are capable of doing, rather than only relying on mostly the Auto settings.

I've still got time to practice and get more familiar with the camers before February.

Thanks again.

[BORDER REIVER]

Sorry to keep talking about photography here, but I've tried asking questions on photography websites and have had no replies. I suppose my questions are very Hurtigruten and Norway specific anyway and I know I'll get an answer on here based on real experiences, not guesswork.

 

I'm wondering if I've got enough SD memory cards to accommodate all the photos/video I might take on a 12 day voyage.

 

I have 1x16gb Sandisk Extreme Ultima Pro(class 10)

1 x 16gb Silicon Power HC (class 6)

1 x 8gb Ultima Pro HC (class 6)

3 x 4gb Sandisk HC (all class 6).

That's a total of 52gb.

 

I'm not certain about the quality or reliability of the cards I have. I once used a cheap card on a cruise and it died on the second day, although the ship techies recovered my photos.

If there's any quality issues there, I'll buy better cards.

 

My Panasonic will give me 800 11.5mp photos or 8 mins of video per 4gb of memory.

The Olympus will give me 1,200 12mp photos or 24 mins of video per 4gb of memory.

I found that on this years cruise to Norway, I took very little video but took lots of photos (1,500 or so in 14 days).

Once again, your advice is very welcome. Thanks.

[digitl]

I came back from our recent trip (Tromso - Kirkenes - Bergen) with 3000 .jpg images (~25GB) and 28 .mov videos (2.1GB). As I also save as RAW, I had ~70GB there too.

 

Some of the images were taken using burst as we were watching sea eagles in Trollfjord, so that increased the frame count a little, as did the couple of days in Tromso prior to boarding and two in Bergen after we had disembarked.

 

I think you may have enough storage but only time will tell...! If you work out the cost per image of a new card, and put it against the disappointment of running out of storage, or a failed card, you might want to acquire an additional one?

 

I only use 'Sandisk 16GB Extreme SD cards (SDHC) 45MB/s Class 10' cards from mymemory.co.uk. Good prices, quick delivery, and they're an accredited Sandisk retailer. If you do decide to buy additional cards I wouldn't consider Ebay or Amazon (unless sold and despatched by Amazon): been there, done that, got the fake that failed!

[SarniaLo]

I have 1x16gb Sandisk Extreme Ultima Pro(class 10)

1 x 16gb Silicon Power HC (class 6)

1 x 8gb Ultima Pro HC (class 6)

3 x 4gb Sandisk HC (all class 6).

That's a total of 52gb.

In terms of memory size, this looks about right. I have 2 8Gb and 3 4Gb memory cards (and a couple of 2Gb old ones as well). I'd rather have more smaller cards than a single big one, because if it fails I might not lose so much pictures. I took about 2500+ pictures on my last trip (Bergen-Kirkenes-Trondheim + couple of days in Oslo).

Because I have the same worry than you about the reliability of memory cards, I now take a small laptop (a notebook, actually) and an external hard drive on all my trips. Every night I download the day pictures on the laptop, and every other day or so I back up everything on the hard drive. This allows me also to reuse the memory cards when they are all full. And I can use the laptop for some quick internet access as well.

Edited November 16, 2013 by SarniaLo

[digitl]

Good advice re using smaller cards but the DSLRs I use produce large files and so anything smaller than 8GB isn't going to last long! 16GB is, though, as big as I'm willing to go. A regular review on the camera of what's been taken provides some reassurance and is how I found that a card had failed while we were in Central America. Luckily(?), it failed just two shots before I checked for a shot of an armadillo.

 

I, too, take a laptop and back up to that each night. I also have a 500GB 'Colorspace UDMA 2' and back up to that each night as well. I don't, though, reuse cards while on a trip. This means that I have copies of the images in three separate locations, including my wife's handbag! It may sound a little over-the-top but, with the places we visit, the disappointment of losing images would be immense.

Edited November 16, 2013 by digitl

[BORDER REIVER]

Unfortunately, I don't own a laptop or notebook, as I wouldn't use it anywhere else. I do have a small 40GB external hard drive that can be connected to a computer by 2 USB2 cables. If the computers in the internet room have USB ports and SD card readers, then I should be able to download photos in that way.

If that isn't possible, I'll buy a few more smaller capacity SD cards for single day use.

Edited November 16, 2013 by BORDER REIVER

[BORDER REIVER]

Does your Panasonic not have a 'Manual' setting? [Edit: it does.]

 

Or the Olympus? Though it's getting reasonably close to what you are looking for. [Edit: it doesn't, though it does have Custom modes. Might they be useful?]

 

A tripod is really useful in improving results. If you don't have one, have a look at getting a Gorillapod. They're small, light and reasonably inexpensive, and you can fix them to the ship (not the outside railing!!).

 

Thanks again for your input, it's made me think a bit more about my camera's ability and I've taken a few pics of night skies in Northumberland last week.

 

 

I used a tripod as you suggested and the Night Sky setting on the Olympus and the camera gave me ISO 800 & f2.8 at a fixed 4 seconds exposure. This camera should capture the Northern Lights well.

 

On another subject....we're both looking forward to seeing your photographic record of your forthcoming Antarctic trip. I track (as much as possible, using satellite and the Fram blog) the route of each expedition the Fram takes to Antarctica & store them on Google Earth. It looks like the current expedition has been pretty amazing. Good luck for the weather on your trip.

[digitl]

Unfortunately, I don't own a laptop or notebook, as I wouldn't use it anywhere else. I do have a small 40GB external hard drive that can be connected to a computer by 2 USB2 cables. If the computers in the internet room have USB ports and SD card readers, then I should be able to download photos in that way.

If that isn't possible, I'll buy a few more smaller capacity SD cards for single day use.

They do have USB ports: we used them to upload and download images for an end-of-trip photo competition. I expect they will accept your external hard drive. I can't remember if they have an SD card slot. Do you have a card reader that you could take with you? All that assumes that they haven't replaced the computers since February 2012.

[digitl]

Thanks again for your input, it's made me think a bit more about my camera's ability and I've taken a few pics of night skies in Northumberland last week.

 

 

I used a tripod as you suggested and the Night Sky setting on the Olympus and the camera gave me ISO 800 & f2.8 at a fixed 4 seconds exposure. This camera should capture the Northern Lights well.

 

That looks promising.

 

On another subject....we're both looking forward to seeing your photographic record of your forthcoming Antarctic trip. I track (as much as possible, using satellite and the Fram blog) the route of each expedition the Fram takes to Antarctica & store them on Google Earth. It looks like the current expedition has been pretty amazing. Good luck for the weather on your trip.

And I'm looking forward to taking them! It's going to be a long trip and a lot of photographs at almost five weeks: Antarctica - Quito - Galapagos Islands - Rio!

 

I try to avoid the Fram blog until we get back as I don't want to raise expectations or spoil any surprises.

[SarniaLo]

I track (as much as possible, using satellite and the Fram blog) the route of each expedition the Fram takes to Antarctica & store them on Google Earth. It looks like the current expedition has been pretty amazing.

It was! :D I'm just back from this trip and it was absolutely amazing and we went much further south than we could hope for.

Sorry, this is a bit off-topic (I'll try to make a review of this trip at some point). To get slightly back in topic, I had WAY underestimated the memory card capacity I would need for such a trip (I have now close to 8000 pictures to sort out, this will take me months! :eek:) but fortunately they sell SD memory card in the Fram's onboard shop (I would guess it it the same on board the Norway's ships?) since I ended up not wanting to erase them, to be safe.

[BORDER REIVER]

It was! :D I'm just back from this trip and it was absolutely amazing and we went much further south than we could hope for.

Sorry, this is a bit off-topic (I'll try to make a review of this trip at some point). To get slightly back in topic, I had WAY underestimated the memory card capacity I would need for such a trip (I have now close to 8000 pictures to sort out, this will take me months! :eek:) but fortunately they sell SD memory card in the Fram's onboard shop (I would guess it it the same on board the Norway's ships?) since I ended up not wanting to erase them, to be safe.

Pleased you had a great time. I'm sure everyone is looking forward to your report and photos. I should be OK for memory cards in Norway. I've got 7, with an overall capacity of 54gb, and I'm going to take along my 110gb mini hard drive, in the hope that I can use the onboard computers to copy photos to it.

I was wondering, how much memory did you use for video, both in Norway and Antarctica? A 16gb SD card gives me about 1.5 hours of HD video. If it's likely that I might shoot a fair amount of video, I might need more cards.

[SarniaLo]

I actually do very little video, I rarely think about it (and regret it later). But if you are planning on doing a lot of video, then yes, it takes a lot of memory. I have about 45 gb of pictures alone. And I only shot in jpg format, which is probably not the ideal choice, but I just wouldn't be able to handle the storage of the same amount of pictures in raw format (I have 2 DLSR bodies, 16mp and 12mp).

[gaelsail]

I should be OK for memory cards in Norway. I've got 7, with an overall capacity of 54gb, and

I use an average of 10GB video storage space each day when I'm sailing in Norway. Sometimes I can edit this down to a more manageable size but the problem with this is that there is always something else to see and sometimes the time needed to do any editing isn't available.