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Hi everyone,
I was wondering if anyone has some tips for taking pictures of Aurora as well as doing time lapses to catch the aurora. I live in Alaska, and aurora is fairly frequent here. I have a 35mm f 1:1.8 Nikon lens that works great, but I really want to be able to capture more sky, for a better chance of catching the aurora. I do have a 10-20mm f:4.5-5.6 lens that captures a lot more sky than the 35mm, but I have to use longer exposures because of a greater f-stop, which makes the aurora blurry. I also have a harder time focusing that lens on the stars, especially when they aren’t that bright. Your advice is much appreciated.-Jerrell
Hi @jerrell, it looks like not too many folks here on the forums have much experience photographing the aurora! I’ve only seen it like once or twice in my life, and not obvious enough to be able to take pictures of. 😀
Perhaps any of these articles could help, if you haven’t already scoured the Internet for what you’re looking for…
https://capturetheatlas.com/how-to-photograph-the-northern-lights/
https://www.davemorrowphotography.com/2014/10/how-to-photograph-northern-lights.html
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/how-to-photograph-the-northern-lights-according-to-an-expertMy experience with night sky photography is, yes, a wider aperture is better than a wide lens. But if you can have both, you’ll have it made! If you can afford something wide angle at 2.8 or wider, that would be the next step for better night sky photos.
Hi @jamesstaddon, thanks for taking time to find those links and thanks for the input! I appreciate your time and want to say that I really enjoy your course and how you put it together. And in case you would like to see some of the Northern lights photos I have taken in the past, here are two of them.
Jerrell
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I’m not quite sure what my shutter speed was, but I think it was between one and two seconds at f 1.8 or f 2. (it might have been as long as 3-5 seconds, but I can’t remember).
Wow this is super cool! I’ve always wanted to dabble more in night photography! I know Samyang and Rokinon both make good astrophotography lenses. They’re wide with a manual aperture and focus, but they’re cheap and sharp and I think some are designed specifically around astrophotgraphy (so they handle stars pretty well). Look into them. I’ve got one on my Amazon wishlist that’s been parked there for a few years now haha.
Getting your hands on different gear is always fun… but sometimes shooting with the “wrong” gear will give you better results and stretch you more as a photographer. So, while you not might be able to get “more sky” right now, maybe you can put the aurora next to something else as part of a different composition? Just thoughts 🙂
Thanks for your recommendation on good astrophotography lenses. That’s not something I know much about at all!
Hey @loganlanmar,
Thanks for the advice! I definitely agree that one can make the composition interesting even if you don’t have a wide-angle lens. I have been able to get some decent aurora shots lately using time-lapses. I still think I will get a better wide-angle lens because sometimes I don’t have my camera pointed in the right direction during the time-lapse so I miss a bunch of aurora.
Thanks for the lens recommendations!
just curious, do you know much about Tokina lenses? I am considering purchasing a Tokina 11-16 mm f2.8 lens. Let me know if you have any experience with them or what your opinion is about the lens I mentioned.(here it is on Amazon
https://a.co/d/7hjYa7p )Thanks again!
Jerrell@jerrell I’ve definitely heard of them, as I’ve spent many moments looking at camera gear… I think I was looking into that same lens for a while believe it or not! I’ve never used them though. Bryan over at the-digital-picture.com has reviewed a couple of the older iterations of them (https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Tokina-11-16mm-f-2.8-AT-X-Pro-DX-II-Lens.aspx). I usually read his reviews extensively when I’m looking at putting down some money on some new gear.
One thing you could try would be to rent or borrow the gear you’re thinking of purchasing (just make sure to block out a time to shoot with it!). @jamesstaddon once let me borrow his 70-200 f/2.8 at a conference eight years ago. I was blown away by the quality boost and I didn’t hesitate to spend the money to rent it when I was asked to shoot a friend’s wedding several years later. I’ve borrowed other friend’s lenses before and made markedly different decisions (I have one friend with a Tamron 17-50… I tried it… and the autofocus is way too slow for what I need it for). I’ve had excellent experiences with lensrentals.com. Might be worth looking into.
https://www.lensrentals.com/rent/tokina-atx-i-11-16mm-f2.8-cf-lens-for-nikon-f
Thanks @loganlanmar so much for all your advice! I checked out the lens rentals but it is quite expensive to ship to Alaska and I haven’t researched if there’s any local lens rental places in my area. I think I will purchase the Tokina lens eventually, but am not sure when.
-Jerrell
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