Capturing a stunning aurora

Get your camera settings right before the light display begins, and tweak them as it evolves

When your location is right and you’ve seen a strong indication for an aurora display, priming your camera is the next step. First, when shooting at night take the brightness of the LCD screen on your camera down to its lowest brightness setting, so you’re able to use it without suffering from glare.

Whatever lens you use, remove all your filters, as they can decrease the light hitting the sensor and also create unwanted casts that are impossible to remove when editing. Switch your camera to Manual mode, lens to manual mode and move the focus ring to infinity (many lenses have an infinity icon on the lens barrel). Great aurora shots come from letting in as much light as possible, which means a low f-number and greatly boosted ISO. Remember that the aurora borealis is a natural source of light, of varied

luminosity, constantly changing and emitting a substantial amount of light during an intense display. Therefore, there are no resolutely structured settings.

Another good starting point is to use settings similar to landscape astro shots. Begin at 20 seconds, ISO 6400, and have the lens wide open. Then as the aurora intensifies, decrease the shutter speed to obtain detail in the aurora and lower the ISO for a cleaner image – both a few stops ata time until the detail looks good, and highlights are not excessively blown out.

Remember to calculate the focal length and shutter speed to get sharp stars, depending on the lens and camera type you are using. For less intense displays you may find you stay at high ISOs and long shutter speeds to expose enough of the scene. Strong solar storms can see shutter speeds as low as two seconds and ISO of 400-800.