Northern Lights from Ship

[FiftyOnePlus]

1 hour ago, jimgri said:

 

Hi FiftyOnePlus, Thanks for the kind feedback. I use a mirrorless Fujifilm camera, namely the X-E2. Most of the Northern Lights photos were taken with a very wide angle (12.0 mm) manual focus Samyang lens, wide open at f/2.0 and focused to infinity. ISO was set at 250 with exposures ranging from 20-30 seconds. Needless to say, a tripod was essential. All of the photos were processed afterwards using Adobe Lightroom to bring out the colours that the natural eye doesn't always see.

Thanks for that.

I actually liked the photos of things like pipes and container ships more  lol  The ordinary stuff that look amazing in your photos.

 

[P-L-B]

9 hours ago, OxnopFlyer said:

 

Hi P-L-B

 

Yes, I used a Canon Legria HF G40 to capture that video and was surprised how much it picked up. It was the first time I’d tried it in those conditions too. I had it in full manual with the widest aperture, shutter speed of 1/12 sec (it goes down to 1/6 sec but no good when it’s hand held) and the gain control was at maximum.

 

As I said this was really the only night we saw them as from then on in Tromsø and Alta it was either snowing or absolutely zero auroral activity even when it cleared.

But don’t let that put you off, it was still an unforgettable experience. I’ve even booked to go back in Feb 2020 on Aurora for round 2.

Thanks for the information.

 

Yes, a very good piece of kit you have there with useful manual adjustments which I am sure helped in getting those low light shots.

 

We did a Northern lights cruise last November on Aurora which we thoroughly enjoyed but on that occasion we didn’t see much activity from the ship but we did experienced a fantastic show during an independently ‘Hunting The Northern Lights’ organised tour.

[OxnopFlyer]

2 minutes ago, P-L-B said:

Thanks for the information.

 

Yes, a very good piece of kit you have there with useful manual adjustments which I am sure helped in getting those low light shots.

 

We did a Northern lights cruise last November on Aurora which we thoroughly enjoyed but on that occasion we didn’t see much activity from the ship but we did experienced a fantastic show during an independently ‘Hunting The Northern Lights’ organised tour.

I did the organised tour too but nothing materialised. One of the most expensive coffee’s I’ve ever had ha ha.

I have seen them on other occasions, in Norway and back at home in Yorkshire so it’s not like I’ve missed out too much.

[jimgri]

On 10/19/2018 at 10:55 PM, FiftyOnePlus said:

Thanks for that.

I actually liked the photos of things like pipes and container ships more  lol  The ordinary stuff that look amazing in your photos.

 

 

At risk of sounding too pretentious, there's a lot of beauty in ordinary stuff! Thanks for the feedback.

[Croooser]

On 10/22/2018 at 3:55 AM, jimgri said:

 

At risk of sounding too pretentious, there's a lot of beauty in ordinary stuff! Thanks for the feedback.

 

Great pics. The colors are vibrant and then some. Is that from post processing or more a function of the camera/lens?

[majortom10]

The camera sees the Northern Lights more vividly and vibrant than the human eye without post production depending on the quality of the camera.

[jimgri]

15 minutes ago, Croooser said:

 

Great pics. The colors are vibrant and then some. Is that from post processing or more a function of the camera/lens?

 

Thanks for the kind feedback, Croooser. I did post-process the photos using Adobe Lightroom but the vibrancy is also a feature of one of the film emulation modes that Fujifilm offers on its camera, ie Velvia – "perfect for landscapes and other situations where you want to pull a lot of saturation out of your colors".

[majortom10]

They used to say the camera never lies but now with PC programmes it can make a very average picture into something good and give a totally false impression of what the camera really saw when taking the picture. That I am afraid is the downside of digital photography.

[jimgri]

1 hour ago, majortom10 said:

They used to say the camera never lies but now with PC programmes it can make a very average picture into something good and give a totally false impression of what the camera really saw when taking the picture. That I am afraid is the downside of digital photography.

 

Whilst I agree with you to some extent, conventional photos have always been enhanced, corrected and manipulated in a traditional darkroom. The digital darkroom, i.e. post-processing, is no different really. Not even a computer programme can turn a poorly composed photo into a well composed photo.