The northern lights. For many millions, seeing them is a dream come true. Being humans in the age of cameras and social media, we also want to share pictures of them on our Instagram. Only problem is, you have no idea how to photograph the northern lights. So how do you make sure you get the best picture then?
Yes, you too can take a picture like this
Get north and get isolated
This step is simple, get up north. Yes, yes, I hear the people in places like Tennessee saying, “It’s rare, but you can get them here!” Sure, you can, maybe once in a lifetime, but you’ll have to be somewhere with so little light pollution and clear skies to be able to see them that you likely never will, even if they technically could be seen.
You also should get away from cities. The more north you are and the farther away from light pollution, the more likely you are to see that magnificent arura borealis. There are companies places that specialize in this sort of experience, and a good travel agent can help you find the best one for you.
Smartphone Photography:
The vast majority of people trying to photograph the northern lights will use their smart phones. And guess what, that’s probably going to get you a pretty good picture. They’ll be better than you think and you’ll impress your friends.
Our phones have gotten pretty good at taking nice looking pictures, especially compared to the first phones with cameras. That improvement isn’t because they have amazing lenses in them, I mean the lenses aren’t bad, but they aren’t anywhere near the quality of what a professional photographer shoots with. The real improvement is the software.
The camera software in our phones is really, REALLY good. It takes shockingly unclear, grainy images and does a great job of smoothing them out and guessing what they should look like. The result is what we see in our phone’s gallery. And this sort of wizardry is what will get you a good northern lights picture. Here’s what to do:
- Use your phone’s built in camera app, don’t use any third-party apps. Your phone’s native software will do a better job than a third-party’s will.
- Your phone should automatically adjust to the lighting conditions, so don’t try “Pro mode” for this.
- Once you hit the button to take the picture, you’ll get an instruction to hold the camera still. Be as still as possible, use a tripod if you’ve got one or at least lean yourself against a solid object like a table or wall to stabilize.
That’s it. Take as many pictures as you can or want like this and choose your favorites.
This is from a mid-tier phone. It was not a flagship model by any means.
Will the pictures be as good as using a dedicated camera, well no. But that’s alright because you’ll still get something to remember what you saw. You can also get a better result than this if you get a small tripod for your phone and let it be stationary for the photo. Something like this little handy guy that I use all the time is great for travel photography!
Full Body Camera Northern Lights Photography:
Whether you’re shooting on a brand new mirrorless camera or a 15 year old DSLR, this advice remains the same. Here’s the starting point for your camera settings to photograph the northern lights:
- Put your aperture at f/2.8 to start with. If your lens doesn’t have an f-stop that low, don’t worry, just get it as low as you can.
- Set your ISO to between 1900-8000. This can change based on moonlight or artificial light sources. You will need to adjust this based on the intensity of those sources.
- Shutter speed between 1-12 seconds. The more active the lights, meaning movement, the quicker your shutter should be. What shutter speed you choose will likely impact your ISO setting.
- White balance around 3500.
Remember, those are starting points, you’ll need to adjust based on conditions. You might want to use a higher ISO setting if your camera can do so, for example. Your shutter speed is the biggest thing to pay attention to because it’s all about how active the lights are and it can vary widely between one night and the next.
Beyond settings here’s some things to remember, especially if you’re travelling.
- Bring a tripod. If you’re doing night photography, you need to have your camera stationary.
- If you have a remote to snap with, use it. Even jostling the camera with your finger press is bad for this. Remember, a lot of modern cameras have an app for your phone that can do this, so you might not need to buy a remote.
Cruising for the lights
This is a travel blog, principally, so I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Hurtigruten cruises. Hurtigruten is a cruise company offering cruising in Norway, Iceland, Antarctica, and more. Obviously, the destinations are exactly the kind of places you want to go to see the northern lights as well as the southern lights. Taking a cruise also offers a chance to see and do a lot of other things along the way as well.
Sounds like a dream scenario! Just one little photographic hitch… you’re on a boat.
The number one thing to do if you want to photograph the northern lights is to be still. Since you’ll be on the water, you’ll experience some movement, even when they bring the boat to a stop, which they do when it’s safe to do that. You can’t really overcome this fact with a tripod, since the thing that’s moving is what you’ll be setting the tripod on. That means that images will have movement in them if you use typical shutter speeds mentioned above. How can you overcome that?
This northern lights photo was taken with an ISO of 12800. There was a lot of movement from the ship, but with noise processing later on, it came out wonderful.
Well one approach is just using your smart phone. Without getting technical, the way that smart phones take images and process them is going to give an internally stabilized result, one that’s a lot better than what the internal software on even the best mirrorless cameras gives you.
Another approach is really maxing out your ISO, meaning 12800 or more and increasing your shutter speed. The faster your shutter, the less movement your image will have. The downside of using such a high ISO is that your image will have a lot of noise in it. Be prepared to use image processing software and noise reduction AI, like what the most popular creative software has, to reduce the noise. If you have access to that though, you can still make amazing images while on a moving vessel.
