A
Photographing the Aurora Borealis
spectacular Northern Lights display is something to behold. It moves, changes color, and changes intensity constantly, and when it fills the sky it takes your breath away. At the same time, it makes you feel small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Photographing the aurora is easy once you understand the settings. You have to first realize that because the lights move, exposures that are too long will cause a loss in definition. In other words, the shape and design of the celestial light pattern may be lost and you end up with
nothing but a large green glow. If this is the first image of the Northern Lights you’ve ever taken, even that will be exciting. But very soon you’ll be looking for something more. My exposure for the image below was 10 seconds. I would recommend making this your longest exposure. As you can see, the curves of light patterns are nicely defined. That’s what you want. The lens aperture I used was f/2.8, and my ISO was only 800. You have to use the largest lens aperture available -- the larger, the better. F/4 is the smallest aperture I’d use; otherwise, you’ll be forced to raise the ISO or length-
11
