Technique Tuesday: Shooting the Aurora Borealis

Apr 12 2022

A short while ago my employees gained the next dilemma in regards to the earlier mentioned picture:

“Was this photograph a single shot, an HDR composite, or some other method?”

Small Respond to:

this is from the excellent ol’ days when you shot a slide (one exposure in this scenario) and waited a handful of months to see if everything turned out…

Medium remedy:

All the aspects – Canon EOS-1N, Canon EF 17-35mm lens, f/2.8 at 30 seconds, Fujichrome Provia 400 film, Gitzo G1325 tripod.

Loooong Reply:

The aurora borealis, or the “northern lights” as they are usually termed is an atmospheric phenomenon that occurs as electrically billed particles from the solar make gases glow in the upper environment. Even with the dryness of this scientific explanation, it is complicated to see the aurora borealis with no enduring a sense of wonderment and mysticism. It continues to be a person of the most dazzling sights in the pure environment.

To get this impression, I flew to Fairbanks, Alaska, then drove 8 hours north to the Brooks Variety on the famous pipeline highway to Prudhoe Bay. The Brooks Assortment lies inside of the Arctic Circle and therefore delivers a a lot more predictable chance to see the aurora borealis. I timed my journey to coincide with a half moon simply because the snow-clad vary would be correctly illuminated by the fifty percent moon’s mild. A comprehensive moon may basically have been too vivid throughout the necessary 30-2nd publicity. I found out that irrespective of the truth that the aurora is in ongoing movement, a 30-2nd publicity is ordinarily rapidly adequate to generate suitable exposure and fairly sharp traces in the shows. When I photographed this screen, I was disappointed with its colour, which appeared to be a boring, pale green. When I returned property and made the film, I was delightfully surprised to explore that the film picked up the reds.

This photograph is featured in the reserve “Edge of the Earth, Corner of the Sky” as properly as being readily available as a fine are print.

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