As an Alaskan photographer in the Fairbanks area, there's plenty of good information here. A couple notes though: -The Aurora season in Fairbanks is late August to mid April, ideally late September to late March. Personally, I prefer the last week of September, but I do live here. -Temperatures can range from the 40's in September to -60f or colder Dec-Feb. -NOAA Spaceweather is 100% the best and most up to date info for aurora forecasting. It's what we recommend locally to everyone. -Some lenses (like the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G) have an insanely short hyperfocal distance so you can absolutely get everything from a few feet away to the aurora sharp in one image. It just depends on the combination of what you're using. Q&A section: -Green is the most common, but white, pinks, reds, purples and blues are known to happen. Red, purple, and blue are the rarer ones. Plus an aurora adjacent thing called STEVE (seriously, the way it was named is hilarious) that usually looks like a white/pink streak off on it's own for a few seconds. As for the colors, my understanding is it's due to the depth the solar wind is hitting into the magnetosphere and how it flexes. University of Alaska Geophysical has a great amount of info on it.
At the 35:48 mark, it is mentioned that the suggested shutter speed is between 2 seconds to 10 seconds. In this case, it is best to shoot in manual mode to have the most control.
As an Alaskan photographer in the Fairbanks area, there's plenty of good information here.
A couple notes though:
-The Aurora season in Fairbanks is late August to mid April, ideally late September to late March. Personally, I prefer the last week of September, but I do live here.
-Temperatures can range from the 40's in September to -60f or colder Dec-Feb.
-NOAA Spaceweather is 100% the best and most up to date info for aurora forecasting. It's what we recommend locally to everyone.
-Some lenses (like the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G) have an insanely short hyperfocal distance so you can absolutely get everything from a few feet away to the aurora sharp in one image. It just depends on the combination of what you're using.
Q&A section:
-Green is the most common, but white, pinks, reds, purples and blues are known to happen. Red, purple, and blue are the rarer ones. Plus an aurora adjacent thing called STEVE (seriously, the way it was named is hilarious) that usually looks like a white/pink streak off on it's own for a few seconds. As for the colors, my understanding is it's due to the depth the solar wind is hitting into the magnetosphere and how it flexes. University of Alaska Geophysical has a great amount of info on it.
Interesting point about using the Adobe colorspace over the RGB one. Thanks for the tip.
A well done webinar on aurora photography!
Thank you great info.
Do you shoot in manual or Av mode. If manual how do you know how long of a shutter speed
At the 35:48 mark, it is mentioned that the suggested shutter speed is between 2 seconds to 10 seconds. In this case, it is best to shoot in manual mode to have the most control.