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A Guest post by Loic Le Guilly
On Sunday 15th of July 2012 I went to a friend’s house to borrow his camera. I had a photo shoot the next day and I had nothing decent to shoot with. My newly ordered Nikon D800 was in the mail… apparently. And I had sold my trusted D3X a few days before. D’oh!
I had warned my friend. “Tonight could be a good night for an aurora… are you cool with me picking up the camera this evening ?”. “Sure no problem” he said. After a good chat about the merits of Canon vs Nikon (he is a Canon guy), I say thanks and start to leave. As I step outside I look towards the southern Tasmanian sky and sure enough, the aurora is happening. A greenish glow is dancing gently over the horizon. “Are you sure you don’t want to grab some shots… I don’t mind waiting”. He hesitates a bit, I insist and soon enough we setup tripod and camera on his deck, watching in awe what turns out to be the most active aurora in recent years.
An aurora happens when charged particles are carried by solar winds and hit the earth’s atmosphere. The particles transfer their energy to the molecules of oxygen and nitrogen. When these excited molecules return to their stable state they release light (mostly green and red). This is what we see when we see an aurora. When it hits the north pole it is called aurora borealis, when it hits the south pole it is called aurora australis. If the aurora australis is strong, it can be seen not only at the south pole but also at lower latitudes such as Tasmania and New Zealand.
My friend started shooting and the results on the camera screen were pretty exciting. The camera sensor and a long exposure reveal a lot more light and colour that can be seen by the naked eye. He kindly offered me to shoot a few frames. I decided to go for it with a 30 second exposure at 3200 iso, 16mm rectilinear lens wide open at f2.8. This can be too bright for really active auroras but I wanted to capture as much of the Milky Way as possible. The first shot I took is the one you see below (straight out of the camera). When I checked the image on the camera the green of the aurora looked very bright but I knew it wasn’t completely overexposed. But the upper red glow was recorded very nicely. Some low drifting clouds added a nice movement to the shot.
I was very excited by the shot I got but I knew I could improve it in Lightroom (I had shot in raw format as I always do). This is a what I did :
And this is the final result.
And here is another image made from 2 shots stitched together in PTGUI. This one was 20 seconds at 3200 iso.
Not bad for a first night with an aurora.
Personally I use the Facebook group Aurora Australis Tasmania. Its members are very knowledgeable and helpful. There is another Facebook group which is less Tasmania specific, Aurora Australis.
Photographing an aurora is a truly exciting experience. I have read that 2013 should be a good year for auroras so keep an eye out and be ready !
Loic Le Guilly is a photographer and web designer based in Hobart, Tasmania.
When not creating websites or shooting commercialy, he loves to wander in the bush to capture the natural beauty of Tasmania.
Wow, just amazing.............. saw another great shot of this in the NPS magazine just recently!
Wonderful images and thanks for thr great tips on post production. I was fortunate to see the Northern Lights in Whitehorse, Canada this year and just haven't been able to tweek the images to my satisfaction. Hoping to return next February for 10 days and looking for some fellow Aurora Hunters to come with me.
Absolutely gorgeous & breathtaking!!!
perfect job.. you did it
Beauty! Thanks for the helpful tips
Nice shotss
Hi everyone
Thanks for the nice comments. The shots were taken from Blackmans Bay, just south of Hobart.
I have had request for prints so if anyone is interested here is some info :
www.hobartphotographertasmania.com.au/prints/
Thanks again
Loic
Some friends and I were flying to NZ that night and the pilot told us the aurora could be seen, unfortunately we were on the wrong side of the plane and the passengers on the right side instantly glued their faces to the windows and left them their for the remainder of the flight : /
Beautiful shots and some great advice. The work in lightroom made for dramatic changes.
Just for many reading this, turn around and look north.
Awesome post and a fellow Hobartian who for some reason I have previously not heard of.
Awesome shot! And some great tips - I'd love to attempt this err well the northern lights for me as I'm up here in New England - but I'm just barely too far south to really have a chance at it without traveling.
A lot of the tips you mention in this post are great for those interested in simply photographing the night sky let alone this crazy natural phenomenon. I used very similar settings to capture this photograph of two kayaks under the night sky - http://www.phogropathy.com/kayaking-under-the-stars/
I didn't push the ISO quite as high as you did - only to 1250, but everything else was pretty much dead on to what you used for the aurora.
Anyways, I'm rambling on a bit here, congrats on the first shots - they're definitely something to be proud of and will always be motivation to go out and shoot again! :)
Great shots Loic. Where abouts in Tasmania were these shot?