How to photograph "Northern Lights"

The spectacle known as the northern lights is something I promise you will never forget, and if you are prepared to photograph them, you will be able come home and share your photos you are proud of with friends and family.

The Aurora Borealis occurs in the Northern hemisphere.  It can be experienced in locations further from the Arctic circles, but to improve your chances of seeing them you need to spend some time on or near the activity zones. Iceland, Norway, Yukon and Alaska are just some of the places famous for the Aurora Borealis in the Northern hemisphere.

How to Photograph the northern lights

BASIC EQUIPMENT:

A good sturdy tripod.

A remote trigger so you don't have to touch the camera.

The camera should be a 35mm SLR camera with manual focus (set to just shy of "infinity"), which works well for Northern Lights photography.

You should also consider a camera that has BULB mode so you can manually control exposure times.

Digital cameras will need to have to be manually adjustable focus with ISO ranges up to 1600

RECOMMENDED PHOTO GEAR:

Beyond the basic photography equipment, you should bring the following gear for great results:

A wide-angle zoom lens, f2.8 (or lower numbers), will give great results photographing the Northern Lights.

If you have a prime lens (with fixed focal length) for your camera, bring it.

TAKING A PICTURE:

You generally will not be able to take good pictures of the Northern Lights with short exposure times. Good exposure times for this are 20-40 seconds per picture (the tripod will help you eliminate shaking of the camera - you can't hold the camera by hand.)

A sample exposure time for ISO 800 with an aperture of f/2.8 would be 20 to 30 seconds depending on the brightness of the lights.

LOCATIONS & TIMES:

It can be hard to predict the Northern Lights so you may be in for a few hours of waiting during a cold night.

The best times generally are after midnight and range from October to the end of April each year.

You should head out of the city and get away from light pollution to obtain maximum quality of photos.

Tips:

1.Batteries don't last as long in cold nights. Bring spare batteries.

2.Try lots of different exposure settings; night photography is challenging. Test your setup first.

3.Include a part of the landscape to make the photos more attractive and as a visual reference for size.

4.Do not use any filters, as they tend to distort the beauty of the Northern Lights and degrade the image.

5.Turn on "noise reduction" and the white balance can be set to 5000K or set to auto on digital cameras.

Techniques

To increase your chance of a successful aurora hunt, you need to be aware of the weather.  If it is cloudy, your chances of seeing the aurora grow weaker.  If you have a clear sky you have a much better chance.

You also need to check the space weather for the northern lights forecast. Please not, even if the space weather forecast is weak, it may still be worth venturing out if you are up north in the areas that I previously mentioned… Iceland, Norway, Alaska and the Yukon.

So you are in an active zone and you have a clear sky and the space weather is a bit uncertain. You can increase your chances again by eliminating light pollution.

The moon can also work against you.  If you are planning a trip to an Aurora zone, try to book it as I do when there is a new moon.

Get your camera set up so that it is easy to handle. Using a flash light make sure your cable is connected, your lens is set just short of infinity and the camera is level to the ground. Then turn off the flash light and let your eyes adjust to the darkness.

You can use the waiting time constructively.  You can practice with your bulb and find a good composition.  Set your camera to f/2.8 (or as wide as possible) iso 800 and take some test shots for 30 seconds.  Do this in all directions but mainly due north (Aurora Borealis).  You may start to see a green hue on your pictures near the horizon. This is a good sign and this is the part of the sky you need to watch.

As the aurora starts to get brighter you need to start adjusting your settings accordingly.  Start by bringing down your iso.

Important note… Always check the brightness of your image on the histogram and never rely on the camera preview screen.  Your eyes have adjusted to the dark so an underexposed image will look fine – until you get it home! Speaking from experience… the back lit LCD screen in the dark makes photos look brighter than they actually are.

If the whole sky explodes and the Aurora casts a shadow, you need to be quick to adjust your exposure times.  The best Aurora shots occur during these brief moments.  A faster shutter of 8-20 seconds will preserve some of the details of the display.

Star trails

The added bonus… Sometimes you cannot avoid star trails if you don't trust iso 800 and you lens stops at f/4, you might be exposing for 2 minutes with a weak aurora.  Generally it is preferred to expose for less than 30 seconds to prevent noticeable star trails.  Stars begin to move over 20 seconds… so if you want fixed stars you will have to increase ISO to keep exposure times under 20 seconds… but, sometimes star movement adds an element to the images you take.

Please join me as I travel to northern Canada to photograph the Northern Lights. The following trips still have some availability.

August 2016 - http://northof49photography.com/fall-colours-in-the-yukon

September 2016 - http://northof49photography.com/yukon-fall-workshop-with

September 2016 - http://northof49photography.com/northern-lights-and-fall-colors-workshop-in-nwt

March 2017 - http://northof49photography.com/2017-great-canadian-aurora-hunt

September 2017 - http://northof49photography.com/2017-fall-colours-in-the-yukon

Starting in April of 2016, Tax refunds are now offered to International travelers taking a tour with Northof49Photography.

Hey everyone, its K2 here. I wanted you all to know that starting in April of 2016, Tax refunds are now offered to International travelers booking a tour or workshop directly with Northof49Photography.

So, not only do you get to take advantage of the weak Canadian dollar, you now will get another 5% to 6.5% tax refund by choosing to come to Canada with us.

After you visit our beautiful country, don’t forget to get some of your money back! 

As an international tourist or non-resident, you may be eligible for a tax refund on the GST/HST you paid on short-term accommodations and/or camping accommodations included in an eligible tour package that you booked directly with Northof49Photography.

The following are the guidelines that have to be adhered to:

1. You must spend a minimum of $200 Canadian before taxes on a tour package to be eligible for a tax refund (the cost cannot include property and services included in the tour package that are not subject to tax, such as overseas transportation services).
2. Non-residents or visitors who wish to claim a refund of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and/or the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) cannot receive a refund on goods they exported from Canada.
3. A refund cannot be claimed without a valid receipt or invoice with the amount of GST/HST paid on the tour package.
4. You have one year from when the tax was paid (or when the invoice was due, whichever comes first) to file your claim.
5. You may not claim any purchases made in Duty Free shops.
6. If you are a foreigner who is currently residing at a Canadian address, you may not claim any tax refunds.
7. You must be a non-resident of Canada when the rebate is filed.
8. You did not purchase the eligible tour package for any resale business purposes.
9. You must provide the rebate application along with a detailed description for the eligible tour package(s), including the number of nights of accommodation in Canada.

Once you pay your final installment, Northof49 will send you the form, along with our invoice to claim your refund. Of the GST/HST paid (13%), a maximum of 50% of the taxes can be claimed.

What are you waiting for, lets go shopping for your next photo workshop in Canada!!!

See our tours and workshops here... http://northof49photography.com/photo-workshops/

Travel to Iceberg Alley for some fantastic photo opportunities

Did you know that one of the best places in the world to photograph icebergs is in iceberg alley off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada? We do, and that’s why we have been running photography tours and workshops to photograph these incredible structures for years.

On our tours you can live the life of a lighthouse keeper overlooking “Iceberg Alley”.

Hear the Killer Whales’ call echoing off massive icebergs in your private cove and awaken to the sounds of the Humpbacks calling you across vast stretches of the North Atlantic. Explore the rugged landscape made famous in “The Shipping News”, the Pulitzer prize-winning novel Judi Dench, Kevin Spacey movie.

Feel the salt spray sting your face as you journey amidst the dolphins and whales. As you land in the cove, imagine you are returning home to the sod huts, thousands of years old, which lay undisturbed here. Forge a link with ancient humans as you stand in the remains of their huts overlooking the cove and picture the tiny beach coming to like as it was eons ago. Your home for a portion of our trip lies atop the cliffs at the northern tip of this deserted island.

The contrast of the rugged beauty of the island and the cozy luxury of our Lighthouse Inn will bring back your childhood feelings of laying by the fire as a storm raged outside. Imperceptibly your priorities in life will shift as you become part of the primal connection between humans and the remote reaches of the sea.

You are now in the best spot on earth to visit with whales and icebergs. At dawn, be certain to introduce yourself to your only neighbors – the whales migrating past your doorstep. An abandoned fishing village near the lighthouse is a great walking destination today. Learn of the tragic but romantic mass murder and suicide that inevitably lead to its demise. Our audio app of the island offers interpretation as you wander.

View the “vast cathedrals of ice”. On sunny days they appear lit from inside and on dull days other senses take over as they seem to grow in size. Their chilling effect spreads to your mind and you feel a timeless empathy for sailors who have dreaded these giants for millennia.

Icebergs are edges of glaciers that have broken off and slipped into the ocean. Glaciers form on land by snow building up over thousands of years. Each layer of snow compresses those below until, 60 to 70 metres down, glacial ice forms. Glaciers then "flow" or "creep" towards the ocean under their own weight, and eventually slip in. The glaciers of western Greenland flow at speeds of up to seven kilometres a year, among the fastest moving in the world. After slipping into the ocean, the bergs float in frosty arctic bays melting slowly, if at all, until passing through the Davis Strait and into the Labrador Current which carries them south into Iceberg Alley. Once they head south, they rarely last more than one year.

Every year about 40,000 medium- to large-sized icebergs break off, or calve, from Greenland glaciers. Only about 400-800 make it as far south as St. John's, but these numbers can vary greatly from year to year. The chances of seeing icebergs in a particular area depend on the number of bergs, wind direction, oceans current and temperatures, and the amount of sea ice, or pack ice.

We monitor the icebergs every year and work with locals to predict when and where they will wail past our locations… and time our tours appropriately.

And just think, almost 90% of an iceberg is under water, hence the phrase “tip of the iceberg.” Its maximum width under water is 20% to 30% larger than you can see at the surface. The average depth, or draught of an iceberg, is slightly less than its apparent length above water.

How big can these icebergs get? Well, in the Northern Hemisphere, the largest iceberg on record was encountered in 1882 near Baffin Island. It was 13 km long, 6 km wide, and was about 20 m above water. It weighed over 9 billion tonnes – enough for everyone in the world to drink a litre of water a day for more than 4 years. Icebergs from Antarctica can be many times larger. In 1987 an iceberg, with an area of 6,350 sq. km, calved from the Ross Ice Shelf. It weighed about 1.4 trillion tonnes and could have provided everyone in the world with 240 tonnes of pure drinking water.

Icebergs can vary greatly in size, ranging from very large – greater than 10 million tonnes and hundreds of metres long – to large, medium, and small bergs. The smallest are termed “bergy bits,” which are the size of a small house, and “growlers,” which are the size of a grand piano. These smaller pieces are hazardous to ships because radar may not pick them up as they bob up and down among the waves. The average weight for a Grand Banks-area iceberg is 100,000-200,000 tonnes – about the size of a cubic 15-storey building.

Why don’t you come see for yourself, we run tours to Newfoundland every year… but not just for the icebergs… we see humpback whales, a variety of seabirds, and some of the most photogenic landscapes Canada has to offer.

To see our 2016 tour, please visit this link. http://northof49photography.com/new-page-1 

To See our 2017 tour, please visit this link. http://northof49photography.com/2017-tour-of-newfoundland