I spent the weekend in the White Mountains in a cabin for my birthday. I especially like this trip because I am in the middle of nowhere with nothing but the wind blowing through the crystalized snow and the moon winking at me. One of the coolest things we did while being out there was taking pictures of the Northern Lights. We relied heavily on our “night mode” from our cameras and ended up with pictures like this:

Nothing like the photos you see in magazines and online. So I thought back to my photography class days and with the help of my amazing Fiancé, we ended up with these Photos of the Northern Lights:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was so excited because you don’t always get to see the reds but with some fine tuning on the camera and basic equipment, we did indeed get to see them, and you can too! So I created this list to help you understand your tools to be able to get some photos of the Northern Lights. It is my biggest disappointment that travelers to Alaska come hoping to see the lights and get a sad show. With this list, hopefully you can come to Alaska, go see the lights and actually come back with a good shot to share your magical event.

 8 Tips on How to Take Pictures of the Northern Lights

If you are wondering how to take pictures of the northern lights when you come to Alaska, I wrote up this little ditty for you! Taking pictures of the northern lights will present a challenge to some but with some careful manipulation and trial and error, you can take really good pictures and even use these tips for standard night photography.

1. Bring a tripod. 

Not just any tripod but a sturdy tripod. This will allow your camera to STAY STILL while taking a picture. Lighting is a huge component to a good photo and obviously without natural lights you can’t see anything. Although the Northern Lights provide a large light source, it is still not enough to point, shoot and get a good shot at what you are looking at. Having a tripod gives you the stability to open your camera and not move. It is this not moving that is crucial to clear pictures of the Northern Lights. I don’t think it’s necessary to get the fanciest tripod out there but be sure to get one that is strong enough to hold your camera without falling over.

Along with the tripod but not necessary is a point and shoot button. Even the very slightest shake of your camera can blur your image and take away from crisp photos of the northern lights.

2. Use a Manual Focus  

With a manual focus, not only do you get to enjoy total control of your tool (the camera) but you will be able to find what you want in the photograph without it changing while you wait for your shot to finish. If you keep your camera on auto focus, once you push the shoot button, whatever you set on manual will go away and you may end up with a blurry shot anyways because there isn’t enough light. Thing is, it’s difficult for your camera to see what you want to take a picture of if it’s dark. Kind of like your eye, you can’t focus on what you can’t see. So if you set the focus before the long exposure shot (taking a picture that takes a few seconds to click)

3. Use a Wide Angle Lens 

A wide angle lens basically takes a picture that is wider than our view point which I recommend when taking pictures of the northern lights. A wide angle lens isn’t necessary but it can change or enhance the perception of what you are looking at and capture that in the photo. Basically the objects closer to the camera seem larger than those far away. Which will make very dramatic northern lights pictures. Getting a whole shot of the sky is the point and a wide angle lens will give you that ability.

4. Understanding Aperture size (F/Stop) and why it matters 

 Think about your eye. When it is dark out your pupil is huge to let in more light so you can see and when it is bright outside, the pupil gets very small because it doesn’t need to be very big since there is a lot of light already. The same principal applies to your camera. When it is dark out and you are trying to get a photo of the northern lights, you have to figure out how big or small you want you “pupil” or aperture.

Generally, in the dark, you want to make the aperture larger so it can get as much light as possible in the shot. This also goes hand in hand with the shutter speed because if your aperture is huge but you take the picture quick, you still haven’t provided enough time for the light from the sky to get into your shot.

So the Aperture is measured by the f/and number. The higher the number, the smaller the aperture size and therefore the smaller amount of light that is entering the camera. It also increases your depth of field. Similarly, the smaller the number, the wider the aperture, meaning better chance of light to enter the camera as well as decreasing your depth of field.
When taking pictures of the northern lights, I highly recommend playing with these settings to see what your camera does and I promise it will make more sense.

5. Shutter Speed

This is the last of the three core pieces to taking an awesome photo of the northern lights. The shutter speed is exactly what it sounds like. This is how fast or how slow the shutter closes and captures the picture. Knowing what we have covered about lighting, the shutter speed brings it all together. A slower speed will keep the lens open to the light you are capturing. The longer it stays open (a slow shutter speed) the more light that comes in. This is also very important to the whole package because if the lens is open for a while and you move the camera, you get ALL the light that it sees which means a blurred photo because it is capturing everything it can see until it closes.

6. Understanding ISO and set it low (but not too low)

ISO is one of the three main components to night photography or taking pictures of the northern lights. Basically, the ISO refers to how well your camera will detect light. You can adjust this setting to darken or brighten a photo if you cannot get the same desired shot using the aperture and shutter speed. The ISO is kind of a wild card in regard to photography depending on the lighting. It’s another tool to use to brighten your images, however by raising your ISO, you will also receive a grainier photo.

As a rule you can know that whatever the ISO is at current, doubling it will double the brightness of the photo as you go up. For example: an ISO of 400 will be 2x as dark as the one set at 800. I recommend adjusting this setting after you have adjusted your Aperture and shutter speed.

7. Take test shots  

I cannot stress this enough. You have got to play around with these settings in every setting you get to. Reason being is there is a level of light that is emitted from the northern lights that you just can’t calculate with your eyes. Let your tool do this for you and as you play with the modes and settings together to get a picture, you will become more proficient in which setting to use depending on the overall light you can see when taking pictures of the northern lights.

8. Try Bulb Mode 

I wanted to throw this in at the end because it’s a really cool mode your camera can do that will capture a lot and let a lot of light in. This mode gives you an open shutter until you want it to shut. I like to use this when taking pictures of the stars. You can even use this mode and leave your camera open and “shooting” for hours if you want and you can achieve those fun pictures of the stars streaking across the sky or car lights streaming down the road or anything else. When taking pictures of the northern lights, you can use this mode but I wouldn’t leave it on longer than a minute unless it’s terribly dark out or else you risk losing the image of the lights.

I hope this little list helps you! Happy hunting!