How To Photograph The Northern Lights

Nov 19, 20244 min read

Hi there!

With winter approaching in the northern hemisphere, it’s prime time for capturing the northern lights! Here are 8 tips to help you photograph this amazing phenomenon at its best. 👇

Settings: 5 s, F/1.8, ISO 1000. All photos are taken using a Nikon Z6 II & Nikkor 24/1.8 lens.

1. The Best Time And Location

Apart from having clear skies, you need to have a high auroral activity in your area in order to see the northern lights. There are several apps that send notifications whenever the chances of seeing the auroras are high.

If you’re just an enthusiast, My Aurora Forecast is a decent app. However, if you’re more serious and want detailed information and updates, I’d recommend going with Arcticans Aurora Forecast. This is the app that I’m personally the most fond of.

To get the best view of the northern lights, make sure you head out to a really dark place, far away from the city lights and light pollution. And of course, make sure you are facing north, as this is the direction the auroras usually come from.

2. Camera Settings

Just like in any other type of photography, there are three main parameters that you will have to adjust on your camera; shutter speed, aperture and ISO.

Shutter Speed

The shutter speed controls the amount of light that reaches the camera’s sensor by the length of time that a photo is being taken. In this case, the length of the shutter speed also depends on how fast the auroras are moving. Shorter shutter speeds (up to 5 seconds) are ideal for fast moving auroras (otherwise they’ll just get blurry). Longer shutter speeds (10-25 s) are on the other hand suitable for slower and more subtle auroras.

Aperture

The aperture controls the light reaching the camera’s sensor by changing the size of the lens opening. When photographing night skies, you want to have the widest possible aperture to let in as much light into the camera as possible. On my lens, the widest possible aperture is f/1.8.

ISO

The ISO can be seen as an artificial way of creating more light, where a higher ISO equals more light. I’d recommend not setting it unnecessarily high, as higher ISO worsens the image quality.

It’s difficult to provide one batch of camera settings that will work in all scenarios, so here are some photos to illustrate a few examples:

Settings: 3 s, F/1.8, ISO 1250. As the northern lights were moving rapidly, I lowered the shutter speed to 3 seconds and increased the ISO to 1250 to compensate for the loss of light.

Settings: 5 s, F/1.8, ISO 640. The snow brightened up the scene a lot, so ISO 640 was more than enough despite the fairly short shutter speed.

I usually shoot auroras in manual mode, but some people prefer using the aperture mode. If the aurora suddenly intensifies, the sky's brightness can spike, making it easy to overexpose your photos if you can't adjust your settings quickly enough. Using aperture priority can help prevent this issue. I recommend trying both methods to see which one suits you best.

3. The Ideal Camera Gear

If you’re just taking photos with your phone and aren’t too picky with image quality - that works fine. Most newer smartphones produce decent image quality these days. Just make sure you use its night mode if your phone has one to get the best possible quality.

When it comes to cameras, full-frame cameras usually offer better image quality in low light situations. This has to do with them having larger sensors compared to crop-sensor cameras. Nevertheless, you should of course work with what you have.

The most important thing is making sure you have a lens with a wide aperture, as you want to let in as much light as possible into your camera. Apertures between f/1.4 - f/2.8 are usually ideal for astrophotography. My go-to astro-lens is a Nikkor 24mm f/1.8.

4. Setting The Focus Manually

When photographing the northern lights, or just night skies in general, the camera’s auto-focus won’t work. Instead, you need to set the focus manually using the focus ring on your lens.

To get the focus right, start by enabling your camera’s focus peaking mode if it has that feature. Focus peaking is a real-time focus mode that highlights areas in focus with a coloured overlay. This can help you determine what part of the image is in focus before you shoot.

When you’ve activated focus peaking, set the focus to infinite focus until the stars in the sky get highlighted. If you don’t nail the focus right away, try tweaking the focus a bit and take some test shots until you’ve got it right.

5. Tripod Stability

Having a stable and solid tripod is essential to prevent your photos from becoming shaky and blurry. You can get away with quite cheap tripods as long as they are sturdy enough. I’m currently using a Manfrotto Element tripod.

6. Using The Self-Timer Mode

Even if you have a sturdy tripod, your photos will risk ending up blurry if you press the shutter-button manually right when taking the photos. To prevent this, simply use your camera’s self-timer mode. This way, your camera will be perfectly still when the photo is being taken.

7. Battery Management

If you’re photographing the night sky in cold temperatures, your camera batteries can lose a lot of capacity due to the cold. Make sure to store any extra batteries close to your body, for example inside your jacket, to keep them warm and prevent battery drainage.

8. Experimenting With Compositions

Once you’ve captured the northern lights in all their glory, experiment with different compositions to make your photos more unique. Try adding foreground elements or incorporating the landscape for variety.

I hope these tips help you capture stunning photos of the northern lights! If you try them out, feel free to share your favorite shots with me - I’d love to see what you create. 🌌

Happy aurora hunting,

Kevin