northernlights

How and When to Photograph Auroras

With winter around the corner, I thought I'd write a quick aurora guide. I'm a professional landscape photographer. I also guide lots of photo tours and have done many in the north. I'd like to help all of you out with a bunch of stuff regarding auroras.

Pushing Canon DSLRs to the Low-Light Limit: Shooting Auroras Live

After photographing the solar eclipse in Idaho, I couldn't resist continuing my "long-service leave" and returning to Canada's Yukon Territory for some early season aurora hunting in September 2017. I had just two and half weeks (one New Moon cycle) based with my friends and supporters Andrea and Florian Lemphers at Shallow Bay, north of the capital Whitehorse.

Aurora Photos: Reality vs. Expectation

We just had a beautiful Aurora Australis hit New Zealand recently. I was fortunate enough to catch a quiet spot to myself where I could take in the atmosphere and shoot a few images.

Wedding Photos Under the Milky Way and Northern Lights

About a year ago, I was asked if I would like to do a wedding photography at night. The bride Erika had seen a photo of a moon halo I took earlier that year. In that photo, I had two friends that I ran into that night. They were out chasing the northern lights and I asked if I could take a photo of them together with the moon halo.

Capturing the Northern Lights from a Window Seat at 35,000ft

On New Year's Eve, you might think the people in Times Square were treated to the best light show... but you'd be wrong. Photographer Aryeh Nirenberg, enjoying a full row of seats on his flight from JFK to Reykjavik, Iceland, was treated to a more spectacular show.

Capturing a Rare Lunar ‘Fog Bow’ Under the Northern Lights

Over the years I've seen lots of different phenomena in the sky, but one that has been on my bucket list for quite some time is the very rare lunar fog bow. I've seen photos of it, but I've never managed to capture it in real life... until now.

Filming the Northern Lights… in Real Time… with a Drone

Capturing the Northern Lights in real time only recently became doable, with beautiful videos like this one popping up to show the potential of cameras that can handle high-ISO with low noise. But the folks at OZZO Photography took this idea to new heights... literally. They strapped a Sony a7S II to a drone and shot the northern lights from the air.

NASA Releases Stunning Compilation of 4K Aurora Footage from Space

Watching the aurora borealis dance above your head is a transformative human experience that thousands capture from places like Norway and the Canadian Rockies every year. But watching it dance beneath your feet? That's an experience only a fortunate few will ever get to have.

The Truth and Lies of Those Aurora Photos You See

We’ve all seen those images over the past few years (popping up in our Facebook feeds or in the media) depicting spectacular displays of the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights from Great Britain, Ireland or the lower 48 in the US. Regardless of the location, they’re pretty amazing images.

But beneath the wow-factor and thousands of ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ lurks a nasty little integrity issue. These aurora images may be photographic eye-candy, but many of them are pure high fructose corn syrup.

Starry Self-Portraits with the Northern Lights

Finnish photographer Tiina Törmänen wanted to capture how small and fragile humans are in the unfathomable expanse of space, so she shot a series of stunning self-portraits showing her silhouette dwarfed by a backdrop of stars and the Northern Lights. The series is titled "Wanderer."

Shooting Self-Portraits Under the Northern Lights

If you've always dreamed of taking pictures of the northern lights, the video above will give you a small taste of what it's like. Swedish astrophotographer Göran Strand captured the behind-the-scenes footage recently when he drove out into the wilderness in the dead of night to chase auroras.

Watch the Northern Lights Dance Over Norway in Real-Time for 5 Breathtaking Minutes

If you're like us, seeing the Aurora Borealis in person is high on your bucket list... quite possibly right at the top. The idea of watching this spectacular natural light show in real-time is thrilling, and while you don't get there sitting on your couch reading this, the video above by Ole C. Salomonsen of Arctic Light Photo is about as close as you're likely to get without being there in person.

Captured over the course of several months in Norway, Salomonsen has compiled the best of the best real-time footage he was able to capture with the Sony a7S into 5 minutes of northern lights bliss.

The Story Behind this Incredible Mountaintop Northern Lights Photograph

Conveying the grandeur of the Aurora Borealis is a serious challenge for a photographer. How are you supposed to capture the splendor of the event, give it a sense of scale, and somehow imbue that photograph with the emotion involved in actually witnessing the polar spirits for yourself?

There probably isn't a magical mixture of ingredients that will yield the ideal northern lights photograph, but the image above by photographer Max Rive is one of the closest we've seen, and he was kind enough to share the details behind it with us.

What an Auroral Substorm Looks Like in Real Time

The Aurora Borealis (AKA Northern Lights) often makes an appearance in time-lapse videos of the night sky, but have you ever seen what it looks like in real time? That's what Korean astrophotographer Kwon O Chul was able to capture in the video above.

Stunning Aurora Borealis Photo Looks Like a Dog Jumping Through the Air

Time-lapse photographer Ole Salomonsen once referred to the aurora borealis as the 'polar spirits,' and characterized their movements as dancing. Well, after seeing the image above by photographer John Chumack we're tempted to conclude that the polar spirits have pets that do some jumping while their parents dance.

A Beginning Photographer’s Guide to Photographing The Northern Lights

Dean J. Tatooles specializes in fine art panoramic landscape photography, wildlife photography, and indigenous portraiture from remote locations around the world. He also works with top-rated travel companies and fellow professional photographers to lead photographic safaris in Iceland, India, Kenya, and more. Fresh off a trip in Iceland, Tatooles and colleague Tim Vollmer answer some common questions about the eerie natural anomaly known as the Aurora Borealis. If shooting the Northern Lights is on your photographic bucket list, be sure to check out their tips below, which have been gathered from years of experience.

Aurora Borealis Time-Lapse Photographed Through an Airplane Window

Who says you need to travel to exotic locations to capture the aurora borealis in action? Sometimes, all you need is a window seat on a trans-Atlantic flight from London to NYC -- at least that's what happened for one lucky amateur photographer recently when he was treated to one heck of an 'in-flight movie' right outside his airplane window.

Mesmerizing Time-Lapse of the Northern Lights Dancing Over Norway

Photographer Ole C. Salomonsen loves shooting the northern lights or, as he calls them, the polar spirits. And for his most recent film he went all out by putting together time-lapse photography of the aurora above cities, in front of starry backgrounds and above gorgeous fjords with a couple of mind-blowing video captures thrown in for good measure.

Immersive 360° Panorama Timelapse Lets You Experience the Aurora Borealis

If you've always wanted to feast your eyes on the aurora borealis but haven't had the time or the money to travel to areas of the world where the light display occurs, photographer Göran Strand has a treat for you. He has created an immersive 360-degree panorama using time-lapse photographs shot during a particularly active aurora. The video lets you pan around in the scene, offering a small taste of what experiencing the northern lights feels like.

First-Ever Hyperspectral Photo of Auroras

Auroras are quite popular as a photo subject these days, especially for time-lapse photography, but a team of researchers in Norway recently snapped pictures of one in a way that hasn't been done before: with a hyperspectral camera. The special device can simultaneously capture multiple spectral bands of light. The composite photograph above was created by combining three such bands of light, with each one assigned a different RGB color.