Welcome to this new tutorial brought to you by AMP&F. In this episode, I quickly go over the basics of aurora shooting, and notably how to take a single exposure of the northern lights. To shoot the aurorae, you need to go to a location where they easily show, like Norway, Iceland, Canada, Sweden, Russia…From there, choose a clear night (the moon isn’t such a problem for auroras as they can be very bright, but choose preferably a moonless night to see all their details and colors), and go instal your camera in a nice location that you had spotted before. From there, follow the instructions of my tutorial:
- Install your gear (low-light performant camera, fast bight wide lens, sturdy tripod, intervalometer, maybe a lens heater to prevent the formation of condensation) (Watch my astro-tutorial about basics: [ Ссылка ] [ Ссылка ])
- Focus manually on a source of light in the far distance
- Adjust your settings: you might want to try different settings according to how fast and how bright the aurora is, but a good starting point is:
Lowest f/stop that your lens allows, or a tad higher for more sharpness
Optimal ISO (watch my tutorial on finding it [ Ссылка ]) or ISO between 1600 and 6400 as a starting point
sShutter speed between 1 and 15 seconds depending on the other two. Be careful though, the longer you expose, the blurrier your aurora will be because it will have moved. The quicker the aurora evolves, the shorter your exposure time should be, so you’ll have to compensate with your two there settings.
The key to succeeding single aurora pictures is to look in the green body of the aurora (glowing oxygen) and watch for blown out highlights (too much light that it appears white). A little is okay, but too much will lead to a loss in details and data! There are tons of techniques to improve your aurora pictures and I will continue to post more advanced tutorials about them, but this should get you started on your journey to capturing your first lights! On a side note, you will be so blown away by its power with a huge rush of Adrenaline that I advise you to watch the spectacle first, and then start taking your pictures… It is to me something that you have to see with your own eyes first! Thanks a lot for watching and I would appreciate if you gave this quick tutorial a thumbs up and don’t hesitate to ask questions, I would be happy to answer them! Take care!
Music: Dexter Britain
Film: Adrien Mauduit
Sony a7s, Canon 6D, Iceland, September 2017
