Aurora Video
I was fortunate to go to Alaska to take photos and video of the aurora from March 12-15. 2012 and 2013 are the peak of the solar cycle and March and September are the peaks of aurora activity. March has better viewing weather, but night time temperatures are 0 to -25 deg F. Initially, we were in a small village in Wiseman, Alaska, which is one of the best places to watch the auroras. It was 60 miles north of the Arctic Circle and in the center of the Aurora Belt. This was my first attempt to shoot an aurora and I wanted to show some of the results.
I was using a Panasonic GH2 with a Panasonic 20mm f1.7 lens. For stills, I was using ISO 800 for 4 to 8 seconds. For video, I was using the No Adverse Affects hack, ISO 8000, at 2 or 4 f/s.
We were blessed with very clear skies and no wind for 4 nights and there had been a lot of recent solar activity. The first night was spectacular. Our guide said it was one of the best displays of the year. Unfortunately, I was fumbling around with my equipment setup and settings. I found my boots (Bass Pro Redhead Expedition Winter Boots) weren’t very effective in the -25 deg F temperatures and I could only stay out for 20-30 minutes at a time.
I found out that there are several phases of aurora activity. Initially, there are light green bands in the sky which don’t change very quickly. They look like the city glow in the sky. In a time exposure photo, they look bright green. If conditions are right, there is a much more dynamic display around Solar Midnight (when we are directly away from the sun and the solar particles whip around the earth and collide). Solar Midnight was around 0200-0300. The bands get much brighter and start changing very quickly and showing more colors. Usually, this phase only lasts about 2 to 5 minutes. These clips are the best of two nights at the height of aurora activity. You can hear how excited the people were around me. I applied a 0, 1.00, 200 level adjustment. My lens was at f1.7 for all shots.
3/12/12 0200 Wiseman ISO 8000 2 f/s Although I used Premiere CS5.5 frame blending, the video is still jerky. Our group had four Americans, four Australians, and 8 Chinese.
http://vimeo.com/39148254
3/13/12 0200 Wiseman ISO 8000 4 f/s – Since the aurora became brighter at the height of activity, I changed to 4 f/s hoping to capture more of the fine detail of the fast changing components and make the video smoother. It helped a little.
https://vimeo.com/38877830
I was disappointed that the video doesn’t show all of the colors that we saw with our naked eye.
I am thankful to mpqxsvcd for the No Adverse Affects hack which enabled me to raise the ISO enough to video the aurora. I was thinking of using the Time Buster hack but I understood that it would negatively affect my stills. Since I was working in a difficult environment, I didn’t want to be changing my hacks during a shoot.
Equipment Comments for shooting auroras in cold weather.
I tried the Pixel TC-252 RS1 Timer Remote Control intervalometer for 4 and 8 second shots. The problem is my GH2 had to post process and clear the buffer between shots. So, the video was extremely jerky. It was a good remote release for the still shots.
The Panasonic Lithium battery’s life was severely shortened by the cold. If I could bring the camera indoors between shots, I could get through 2 hrs. of intermittent shooting on one battery. One night, we had to retreat to an unheated room with temps about -10 deg and the battery would only last for ½ hr of intermittent shooting.
The lens action is very sluggish in cold weather. I assume the lubricants were getting thick. The auto focus would not work at 0 degrees, when we went to an Ice Carving competition in Fairbanks. I had to focus manually.
I was fortunate to go to Alaska to take photos and video of the aurora from March 12-15. 2012 and 2013 are the peak of the solar cycle and March and September are the peaks of aurora activity. March has better viewing weather, but night time temperatures are 0 to -25 deg F. Initially, we were in a small village in Wiseman, Alaska, which is one of the best places to watch the auroras. It was 60 miles north of the Arctic Circle and in the center of the Aurora Belt. This was my first attempt to shoot an aurora and I wanted to show some of the results.
I was using a Panasonic GH2 with a Panasonic 20mm f1.7 lens. For stills, I was using ISO 800 for 4 to 8 seconds. For video, I was using the No Adverse Affects hack, ISO 8000, at 2 or 4 f/s.
We were blessed with very clear skies and no wind for 4 nights and there had been a lot of recent solar activity. The first night was spectacular. Our guide said it was one of the best displays of the year. Unfortunately, I was fumbling around with my equipment setup and settings. I found my boots (Bass Pro Redhead Expedition Winter Boots) weren’t very effective in the -25 deg F temperatures and I could only stay out for 20-30 minutes at a time.
I found out that there are several phases of aurora activity. Initially, there are light green bands in the sky which don’t change very quickly. They look like the city glow in the sky. In a time exposure photo, they look bright green. If conditions are right, there is a much more dynamic display around Solar Midnight (when we are directly away from the sun and the solar particles whip around the earth and collide). Solar Midnight was around 0200-0300. The bands get much brighter and start changing very quickly and showing more colors. Usually, this phase only lasts about 2 to 5 minutes. These clips are the best of two nights at the height of aurora activity. You can hear how excited the people were around me. I applied a 0, 1.00, 200 level adjustment. My lens was at f1.7 for all shots.
3/12/12 0200 Wiseman ISO 8000 2 f/s Although I used Premiere CS5.5 frame blending, the video is still jerky. Our group had four Americans, four Australians, and 8 Chinese.
http://vimeo.com/39148254
3/13/12 0200 Wiseman ISO 8000 4 f/s – Since the aurora became brighter at the height of activity, I changed to 4 f/s hoping to capture more of the fine detail of the fast changing components and make the video smoother. It helped a little.
https://vimeo.com/38877830
I was disappointed that the video doesn’t show all of the colors that we saw with our naked eye.
I am thankful to mpqxsvcd for the No Adverse Affects hack which enabled me to raise the ISO enough to video the aurora. I was thinking of using the Time Buster hack but I understood that it would negatively affect my stills. Since I was working in a difficult environment, I didn’t want to be changing my hacks during a shoot.
Equipment Comments for shooting auroras in cold weather.
I tried the Pixel TC-252 RS1 Timer Remote Control intervalometer for 4 and 8 second shots. The problem is my GH2 had to post process and clear the buffer between shots. So, the video was extremely jerky. It was a good remote release for the still shots.
The Panasonic Lithium battery’s life was severely shortened by the cold. If I could bring the camera indoors between shots, I could get through 2 hrs. of intermittent shooting on one battery. One night, we had to retreat to an unheated room with temps about -10 deg and the battery would only last for ½ hr of intermittent shooting.
The lens action is very sluggish in cold weather. I assume the lubricants were getting thick. The auto focus would not work at 0 degrees, when we went to an Ice Carving competition in Fairbanks. I had to focus manually.
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