Churchill, Canada, located 58o North, directly under the aurora oval may be the best place on Earth to see the Northern Lights. But you have to visit in winter, which is peak time and the daily temperature averages -25oC, creating significant difficulties for photographing the lights due to the cold. Once set up on one’s tripod, the camera stays out until the night’s photography is done, the camera case brought out to acclimate to the cold, then the lens cap applied, the camera removed from the tripod, wrapped and placed in the camera bag which is then brought inside to slowly warm up. This process is necessary to avoid condensation both externally and internally. The exposure was increased in post-processing which I don’t usually do but was required due to my inexperience with camera settings in this type of photography, as this was only the second time I photographed the Lights, and my initial settings were a bit underexposed, as illustrated by the unedited original, which looked far better in the viewfinder than when it was printed.
Gear: SONY a-7 IV, FE 12-24 mm lens opened to 12 mm.
Data: ISO 800, f 4, 4 sec.
Metering: Pattern
WB: Auto
EV: 0
Date: February 12, 2025.
This round’s discussion is now closed! 11 comments posted
Tom Tauber
Alan, forest scenes, even with beautiful aurora borealis don't meet the PT definition because they don't portray a distinctive landscape. Maybe that should be changed. Anyhow, I really like your picture. Good idea to lighten it up. You might have put the sun directly behind the tree to reduce the sun's impact and portray a larger portion of the night sky. Posted: 03/08/2025 14:48:27
Alan Lichtenstein
Tom, I know it doesn't meet the PT definition for competition. I've entered it into competition, but only in PIDC. I should have put a disclaimer in my description here as I did with the Orphan Monks image I shared several months ago. That bright spot wasn't the sun; it was the moon. It was that bright and glaring at night, probably due to the high latitude. It was bitter cold, as my description says, and it was a chore to move the tripod with the camera only about the 25 yards further down the trail to eliminate the tree in the foreground that covered the lights so that the lights would have appeared above the treeline. But only regret is that taking those pictures in complete manual required for this type of photography, I had no frame of reference as to shutter speed at that ISO. In retrospect, I should have gone to 6 or 8 second exposure, or even raised the ISO to 1600 and shot at four, as I did. It all goes to show, that one needs experience under different types of photography. Posted: 03/08/2025 15:12:59
Tom Tauber
Stupid of me to think it was the sun. Not sure what I was thinking. Posted: 03/09/2025 13:58:31
Alan Lichtenstein
No apologies necessary. It is quite easy to mistake the bright glare as the sun. I've never seen the moon so bright. But you're RIGHT about moving to a better vantage point. It was just so cold that a mere 25-yard walk with the camera on the tripod was a bit much. I followed the conventional wisdom but had no frame of reference to pair shutter speed with ISO. I was just learning while I was doing, and with a new camera as well. Posted: 03/09/2025 15:51:41
Vinaya Mathews
I could understand the toughest situation to capture at such cold weather. Its real unfortunate that you got such a bright moon from your position.
Actually shadows of the trees gave superb dof to the photo but 12 mm lens made trees of f/g falling effect. Better luck next time, Alan Posted: 03/11/2025 06:45:03
Alan Lichtenstein
There's not going be a next time, at least anytime soon. I'm in no rush to go back to -25o C ( and that's warm-temperature got as low as -40). But my comments about having no innate understanding of how the combinations ISO settings and shutter speed would work was telling. I will need more practice under low-light settings to gain that innate understanding of how various combinations work to produce what they produce. Absent that, of course, one can do as I did, and increase the exposure after-the-fact, but that's cheating, despite the fact that everyone does it. Posted: 03/13/2025 05:29:30
Dr. Isaac Vaisman
Alan, Northern Lights Photography is challenging and at the same time very rewarding. Indeed you elected to include the moon in your frame which distracts and takes away the beauty of the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis). I cropped and adjusted some your image and now look at the beauty of the colors. Check the camera sensor since there is what looks like a dust spot. Churchill is known as the best place on earth to photograph Polar Bears. Posted: 03/26/2025 18:09:16
Alan Lichtenstein
Isaac, I increased the exposure to account for my inexperience in combining shutter speed and ISO. Apparently, you have increased it even more. I like your crop because it brings out the purple band of the Nitrogen excitation (most lights are green for Oxygen excitation and purple for Nitrogen). That's not a spot on the sensor; it's a star. Stars are visible as pinprick points that look like dust sots. If you look at the image I posted, you'll see many of them. They're common in images of the aurora. But the moon, I've never seen the moon so bright-it actually had a halo around it which I got in other images. Posted: 03/26/2025 18:23:29
Dr. Isaac Vaisman
Alan, this is not a star Posted: 03/26/2025 18:42:51
Alan Lichtenstein
Isaac, you really do have good eyes. I looked into it and saw a small dust spot on the sensor. Fortunately, it was able to be blown off. Subsequent test images didn't show anything there. I though you were referring to the white spots. Posted: 03/27/2025 15:13:03
