How do I shoot them though?

There’s a few basics to keep in mind:

• Make sure you have a head torch, this goes without saying. If you’re around other photographers be courteous of them, it’s good etiquette to only have it switched on sparingly as it can ruin other people’s shots. Have it on to get yourself to your spot safely and compose your image, then turn it off.

• Have your composition planned ahead of time. The absolute worst situation you can be in is seeing an amazing show kicking off and you don’t have the shot planned out, leaving you hastily trying to compose something in the dark with a head torch. Trust me, even as an experience professional, having been in this position myself it’s nearly impossible to pull off without compromised results.

• Have a reasonably ‘fast’ wide angle lens. It’s doesn’t have to be F1.8 or F2.8, an F4 will do, but the faster the better. During big aurora shows like the one recently, you actually don’t need to make particularly long exposures as these events are quite bright anyway. Traditional shots of the Milky Way are between 15-25 seconds depending on the lens and how bright the sky is.

• Focus on a distant light or star – set the camera in manual focus mode, focus on the distant light source (ideally the brightest star you can see, if not a distant town light, anything so long as it’s a good distance away from you.

• Have a good number of spare batteries – chances are you’ll be using the live view on the back of your camera a lot, and with it likely being colder than usual, batteries drain quicker than in normal use. Have spares to hand if you’re planning on doing extended shooting.

• It’s a trial and error process – the aurora is moving constantly, quicker than you think. It’s also bright, in the example image in this article, my ISO was relatively low in the context of Astro photography (ISO 2000) at an aperture of F4 (I don’t own a fast wide angle prime). However, as you can see from the result it was more than adequate for the job. Experiment with your settings, take test shots and see how fast the aurora is moving. Longer exposures past 10 seconds tend to blur quite a lot and you lose some of the shapes and textures of the aurora. That’s where a really fast prime has its advantages, more light into the camera for the same length exposure. What you need to do is find the sweet spot between shutter speed and ISO that gives the best balance of enough light onto the sensor without blurring the movement too much. As a ball park, I’d keep the exposure under 10 seconds and increase your ISO accordingly. On full frame / APSC sensors I think ISO 6400 is about your limit before the image starts taking a hit on degradation.

• Keep an eye on your white balance. I see many poorly processed aurora shots by photographers that clearly have the WB set far too warm. As a starting guide, about 3800K will be close, tweak it from there. In my image is was down at 3500K. The aurora is naturally a blueish green (though can change) it isn’t lime green like a high vis jacket, don’t have your image looking like something out of the ghostbusters! In post, if you feel the image is still too green, increase the magenta tint in the WB settings to neutralise this.

Composition

The most important bit. While I don’t shoot much Astro, where many casual Astro photographers fall down is that they don’t pay nearly enough attention to the actual composition, either by having poorly chosen subjects which aren’t interesting as their foreground, or not getting the balance right between sky and foreground (usually far too much sky in the shot). The actual technique of getting a well exposed shot of the night sky is (relatively) simple once practiced. The hard bit is actually combining it with a compelling subject and a balanced composition. I suggest two approaches:

1. Find anything which works as a simple silhouette for your foreground like a barn, a lone tree, a building, anything with distinctive shapes or strong lines. Then compose this exactly the same way as you would a regular shot during daytime. Give thought to how much breathing room the subject has; don’t have it too close to the frame edges. Once decided, choose a focal length (usually quite wide) that gives you enough headroom to accommodate the aurora. DO NOT choose subjects which blend into darker elements on the horizon, like distant buildings or tree lines. Remember, the subject will be largely a silhouette, so if key elements blend into other darker, distant elements the subject’s impact will be lost.

2. If you can’t find a subject like the ones mentioned above, keep it simple. A body of water (lake, pond etc) or anything that you can reflect the sky in. In my example (and while I’m fortunate to have an abundance of bodies of water close by) I chose to shun more obvious foreground subjects like the nearby Ashness Jetty and head for a clear area where I could let the night sky be the star of the show. My shot is a simple one using the silhouette of the mountain as a relatively small but recognisable feature, whilst allowing the reflection of the aurora to be the star of the show.

Summary

It’s likely we’ll see further events like this in the UK in the near future, so it’s key to have a solid plan in place beforehand. Any reasonably  skilled photographer can produce a well exposed image of the night sky / aurora, but if you want your image to be more than a mere snapshot, consider some of the things I’ve mentioned above . If I can give one key tip overall it’s to keep your compositions clear and simple. Overcomplicating the foreground when shooting the aurora for me is the number one mistake I see.

Enjoy the timelapse of my shoot below :-)