Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: markymarkrb on March 07, 2011, 02:06:19 pm

Title: Shooting the Aurora
Post by: markymarkrb on March 07, 2011, 02:06:19 pm

I am heading out to Talkeetna, Alaska tomorrow night to try and get some shots of the Aurora.  I saw them last week over Elmendorf AFB and couldn't believe it.  I have seen them many times while flying but never from the ground like last week. I will be shooting with my Fuji GX617 camera with a 105mm lens and Velvia 50.  Does anyone have any tips or tricks for shooting the Northern Lights on film?  I have never tried this one before.

Mark

Title: Re: Shooting the Aurora
Post by: c_soars on March 07, 2011, 02:55:31 pm

I came across this fellow's site a while back, he has a good table for exposure times for a given film speed and aperture:

http://www.ptialaska.net/~hutch/aurora.html

He was shooting 35mm though...

Title: Re: Shooting the Aurora
Post by: markymarkrb on March 07, 2011, 04:44:30 pm

Site has a lot of information.  Thanks for the help.

Title: Re: Shooting the Aurora
Post by: ondebanks on March 09, 2011, 09:45:06 am

Velvia 50 is a bit slow for this. The aurora shifts and changes on timescales of a few seconds. Provia 400 or Kodak E200 (alas, discontinued) would be better to "freeze" the banded structures and would pick up more stars as well.

Ray