How Not To Photograph The Northern Lights
Nikon Z8 and Nikon Z 14-24mm f2.8 S lens at 16mm: f2.8, 10 seconds at iso 800.
The Northern Lights and Southern Lights (Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis) are two of, if not the most, spectacular natural phenomena that can be witnessed on Earth. Solar storms on the surface of the sun emit charged particles that travel millions of miles with some eventually colliding with the Earth’s atmosphere. Most of these charged particles are deflected away by the Earth’s magnetic field but some become captured by this field at the north and south poles. Accelerating downwards, these charge particles collide with atoms in the Earth’s atmosphere. These collisions “excite” the atoms in the Earth’s atmosphere which then give off light. Excited oxygen atoms in the Earth’s atmosphere give off the green light and excited nitrogen atoms give off the purple, blue and pink lights that make up the Northern and Southern Lights..
I have glimpsed the Northern Lights from the UK on a couple of occasions, one in circumstances I would prefer to forget, but I have never been fortunate to see (let alone photograph) one of the spectacular displays that occassionally can be seen from our shores. Solar activity fluctuates on an 11 year cycle (the Schwabe cycle). With solar activity peaking this winter, the chances of seeing the Northern Lights were theoretcially at their best. Practically, there are many variables that come into play, particularly the weather, that make aurora chasing anything but certain. With the solar cycle peaking, my wife and I booked a short four night trip to Laponia in Finland with the hope, amongst other things, of seeing the Northern Lights. Whilst this was primarily a family holiday, I did hope to photograph the Northern Lights and packed my camera equipment.
Nikon Z8 and Nikon Z 14-24mm f2.8 S lens at 16mm: f4, 8 seconds at iso 800.
Leaving a relatively wet and warm 12 degrees celsius February day in UK, after a three hour flight we arrived in Rovaniemi in Laponia to a very snowy and cold minus 21 degrees celsius. This was a real winter, poles apart from the winter’s we now have in the UK. A 60km drive from the airport took us to the small Beana Laponia Wilderness Hotel located in a remote area of wilderness north of the Arctic Circle. After settling into out log cabin, we had time for a short walk through the snow covered trees before going to dinner.
If you read any guides or articles on photographing the Northern Lights, they will explain how important it is track the solar activity using one of the aurora apps and to have everything prepared and ready to go if the Northern Lights put in an appearance. You would expect a professional photographer, even one on a family holiday, to have headed this advice!
Just after we had finished dinner and were sitting relaxing, the lovely Finnish lady who was looing after us, informed us that if we wanted to see the Northern Lights we should go outside now as they were visible from just outside the hotel. It was at this moment that I realised how unprepared I was. Rushing outside the hotel, we could see with our own eyes the Northern Lights starting to build. Not knowing how long the display would last, I took a few images using my iPhone, these images were surprisingly good. With these iPhone images in the bag, I rushed inside to sort my camera gear out. Fortunately, I already had an Arca Swiss L Plate on my Nikon Z8 mirrorless camera, but I had to quickly change the attached lens from my 24-70mm f2.8 lens to my 14-24mm f2.8 lens which together with my cable release and rocket air blower I stuffed into my MindShift camera holster. I didn’t have time to change into warm outdoor clothes and had to make do with putting a warm padded jacket on (over my dinner clothes), together with hat, gloves and warm winter boots. Grabbing my Benro tripod, I left the warm cabin.
Outside, I didn’t initially notice the cold given the display of the Northern Lights that was developing in the sky. A complete arc of green light now stretched from horizon to horizon. This was when my lack of preparation really hit, I had not recced any location(s) around the hotel to photograph from and had not previsualided any potential compositions! Call yourself a professional photographer, Andrew! Assessing the area, I quickly decided to set up my tripod on one of the snowmobile tracks infront of the cabin, this gave me a stable platform with a good view of the sky with a red wooden building as foreground. As luck would have it, the foreground was illuminated by the almost full moon that was high in the night sky diametrically opposite the position of the Northern Lights. Setting up the tripod, camera with the ultra wide angle lens, I manually focusing on the red wooden cabin and attached the cable release. After taking an image and reviewing it, I spotted that the foreground included another snowmobile track and that there were trees obscuring part of the cabin. Quickly I move forward and, after floundering in thigh deep powder snow, set up on this second snowmobile track, this gave me a clean foreground with a clear unobstructed view of the red wooden cabin.
The Northern Lights were now starting to peak and I started to make a series of images. Just as I was getting into by stride, my wife appeared by my side and asked me to take a few images of her with the Northern Lights using her iPhone. I didn’t know if this would work with an iPhone but who was I to argue this point. Taking off my gloves to operate the iPhone, I took two handheld three second images of my wife under the Northern Lights. I was amazed at the results! With the moon illuminating my wife, the iPhone magic created wonderful images of my wife with the Northern Lights behind her. Fortunately, my wife was pleased with the results. I then had time to make a few more images before the Northern Lights display came to an end.
After watching this spectacular display of the Northern Lights for over an hour, by the time the display was over, I was really feeling the cold and was glad to be able to go back inside the cabin and warm up. To avoid any condensation, I had to leave my camera and lens in the Mindshoft holster to warm up before I could check the images the following morning. Despite not being prepared, I was pleased that I did manage to make a series of images of the Northern Lights as they danced in the Arctic sky. More importantly, my wife was pleased to have finally seen the Northern Lights herself and to have her own iPhone images of them - including a couple of portraits with them.
Nikon Z8 and Nikon Z 14-24mm f2.8 S lens at 16mm: f4, 8 seconds at iso 800.
The following three nights of our stay in Laponia were cloudy and sadly we did not see the Northern Lights again. We did have a great holiday and highly recommend the Beana Laponia Wilderness Hotel whose website can be found here.
