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Thread: Aurora Borealis in Finland

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    Default Aurora Borealis in Finland

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    This was my first ever encounter with this amazing phenomenon. Unfortunately, lack of a car and about 1,5 m of snow (not to mention that it was -35 degrees Centigrade) prevented me from moving to a more open space, so I had to work with what I got. This is shortly after the corona passing over our heads. That was such an amazing sight that I chose to enjoy it with my own eyes instead of focusing on photographing it. The strong orange glow is light pollution from a nearby ski resort. I tried desaturating it, but this caused weird artifacts where the light passes trough the trees, and I quite liked the combination of colors.
    As this was my first attempt at photographing the aurora and my first serious attempt at night photography, I would be very happy to get any comments on the techs and post processing of this image.

    Nikon D7000, tripod mounted, Nikkor 16-85 @ 16mm, ISO-1600, f/5.6, 15 sec, EV -1.3.
    PP in ACR: increased clarity and vibrance, NR (luminance and color), sharpened. I used graduated filters in ACR to reduce saturation and exposure of the LR part of the image, and increase clarity on the aurora to emphasize its structure.

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    BPN Member dankearl's Avatar
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    Too much light pollution and the FG trees are not sharp, but the Aurora looks great (I am very envious).
    The PP looks good, techs are fine for your equipment and you did well getting the Aurora as well as you did at f5.6 and the stars also look fine at that aperture.
    Dan Kearl

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    Thanks for the feedback Dan. Given your ample experience with night photography, I have a question for you re. those unsharp trees: I was advised for the aurora photography, as well as starry skies or Milkyway photography to alway use a high aperture to ensure to get as much light as possible on the sensor (in combination with high ISO settings for sensitivity). Also, the advice is to set the focus to just under infinity. However, that would generally mean that any FG objects will be OOF, as the trees are here. Is the advice I got wrong, or are these settings fine an should I just avoid any objects close by in the FG?

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    BPN Member dankearl's Avatar
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    Jerry,
    Getting the focus right is hard but doable at wide open apertures.
    You need to adjust manual focus in daytime, there is a sweet spot for most lens
    (some are much better than others, Rokinon or Samyang are really good), where you can get all in
    focus. That being said, I do try to avoid anything very close up and vegetation especially.
    The trees in your FG may have been moving slightly due to wind which is probably the case.
    15 or 20 seconds requires zero wind to work with vegetation so I avoid it if I can.
    Static FG subjects at a reasonable distance away for interest is the way to go. Scouting out
    shots during the daytime is almost a must to get good night photos.
    Dan Kearl

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    Lifetime Member Rachel Hollander's Avatar
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    Hi Jerry - Great job on the aurora on your first try. I still struggle with night photography but the advice Dan gave you above is advice I also recently received from a pro who does a lot of it.

    TFS,
    Rachel

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    Landscapes Moderator Andrew McLachlan's Avatar
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    Hi Jerry, Dan offers some very good advice on capturing the night sky. Once you adjust your manual focus to find the sweet spot for infinity focus I would also recommend that you mark the lens in such a way that you can easily focus the lens to the same spot each night when you photograph the stars...aas for this image I think I would darken the trees so that they are essentially silhouettes, that way they will appear sharper.

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    BPN Member Don Lacy's Avatar
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    Hi Jerry the DOF for 16mm at f/2-8 set for infinity will be around 5 feet to infinity so all you need to do is be conscious of where you put your foreground elements but it is plenty of DOF to play with.
    Don Lacy
    You don't take a photograph, you make it - Ansel Adams
    There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs - Ansel Adams
    http://www.witnessnature.net/
    https://500px.com/lacy

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    Thanks Don. That would mean the lack of sharpness in this image is not due to the lack of DOF, but a result of the long exposure time and the detail loss because of the high Iso. Those trees were definately more than 5 feet away, at least the ones in the BG. Detail loss kicks in quickly with the D7000 at higher Iso, I always try to stay below 400.

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