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Re: [OM] Photographing Northern Lights (was Photography in Stavanger?)

Subject: Re: [OM] Photographing Northern Lights (was Photography in Stavanger?)
From: "John A. Lind" <jlind@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2000 13:10:06 +0000
A common thread in all the advice I've seen on this:

1.  Absolutely get away from any light pollution, at least five miles from
the outskirts of a city.
2.  Use a fast wide-angle of f/2 or f/2.8 and shoot no slower than f/2.8
3.  Shutter speeds will depend on film speed and auroral intensity, but can
be as long as 30 seconds.  This requires a tripod and cable release (doh!)
and film that does not have reciprocity failure at long timed exposures.
4.  There is a tradoff between fast film, color saturation, and sharpness
of the aurora.  Recommended film speeds for color saturation are ISO
100-200, but can easily blur if the aurora is undulating.  Super fast films
in the ISO 800-1000 range will not blur with shorter shutter speeds, but
will be grainy with less saturation.

An excellent site for monitoring auroral activity, both borealis and
australis, and for predicting the probability of seeing one is here on the
US NOAA POES site:
  http://sec.noaa.gov/pmap/
Click on the polar image for the pole you want and it will display a larger
image.

-- John
P.S.
NOAA = National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (part of the
Department of Commerce)
POES = Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellite

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