Brendan Davey Photography

My experience with the Aurora.

I have shot a few Auroras now, most at fairly low light levels when compared to those at very high or low latitudes. I have shot a nunber at around 42 degrees south from Tasmania, and here are my tips for shooting Auroras that are just visible to the eye.

Light, it’s all about light. The fastest glass is going to give you the best results, why? Auroras are funny things, large light curtains that slowly move and weave across the night sky, in order to get the best picture you need to “stop” or have as little movement in the curtains as possible. There are only two ways to do this while keeping your exposure short, either you increase your ISO or you open you lens f-stop to allow more light in. Increasing the ISO is not ideal as it adds more noise, and only the best cameras will have usable low light pictures at high ISO’s

The picture above was shot at ISO 800 for 2 mins at f4 with a 17-40mm, in this example you can just start to see start trails, and the aurora is flat with little variation across the color bands. f4 on this lens was the max f-stop for light. If however I had used a 24mm f1.4 I would have been able to reduce the time period by 3 stop or an exposure of 15 seconds @ f1.4 at ISO 800. This would have given the same overall exposure but allowed for more variation and exposed the ribbons better.

So, get the fastest glass you can afford, and this is sometimes a trade off with focus length. For example 16-35mm f2.8 v’s 24mm f1.4, the 24mm is going to allow a lot more light in, but will not be as wide as the 16-35, and the cheaper 17-40mm f4 is going to allow even less in. Another option is the Sigma 20mm f1.8 if you can handle it’s softness.

What else do I need to know? Well, don’t try shooting an aurora near other light sources, such as cities. If you moon is up, and all but a slither then forgot it, it’s going to wash your aurora shots out. Use a good tripod, I can’t stress it enough, don’t buy a cheap flexible tripod for low light photography. the slightest movement is going to wreck your shot. You can used ND grads, and they will help to even out brightness. Know where infinity is on your lens, as you may not be able to see enough to focus. Some cameras show stars in live-view zoomed in and you can focus on them, or a light source far in the distance.

I have been a user of the 5D mark II since the day it was released, well almost. It’s a great work horse, delivering consistent images regardless of the situation. Then along comes the Nikon with the D800, and it’s smaller brother the D600. Are they any good for landscapes compared to the Canon? After some very extensive research on the web (hours of reading articles), I decided to move to Nikon, with the D800 being all the rage. So I borrowed a friends D800, and a D300s to do some basics comparisons and to get used to the Nikon bodies. What I will discuss here is how Nikon compares to Canon for low light landscape photography. The types of light levels I’m discussing are around 30sec / f2.8 / 1600ISO.

The D300s I was considering for a second body, as is of the same era as the 5D mark II. It was useful to confirm the D800′s metering as discussed below.

Live View

Canon has always had a good live view system, particularly with the frames per second delivered to the LCD on the rear of the camera. The first thing I noticed with Nikon was increased noise and significantly reduced frame rate when viewing zoomed in content on the Nikon, particularly in low light. The combination of these two factors made it very difficult to focus the camera, and I stress ‘very’, with the Canon I could focus on a star for example, while with the Nikon the frame rate was so low it was very difficult to focus, not impossible, just frustrating. I did however like the inbuilt level feature. Insuring the horizon is level at low light can be difficult.

Exposure

I’m sorry, but the Nikon is next to useless for getting the exposure anywhere near correct at extremely low light. In very low light conditions the Nikon did not meter anywhere near correct, and was metering at least 3.5 f-stops below the Canon. Having said that the Canon was also metering low as well and I was clearly in the manual settings / try and see space. It could be that Nikon allows significantly more light in through the view finder? It was nice to see that the D800 did have a shutter for the viewfinder, which was a welcome relief from the rubber boot / strap cover. To be fair on the Nikon the conditions were well outside of normal photography, and even the Canon was struggling, but closer to the mark.

Color Balance

The Canon always delivers good color balance, and very rarely do I have to set it to daylight or any other setting, even when shooting at night. The Nikon however was struggling and needed to little more help to get the balance correct, most of the pictures were turning out a very dark blue. Having said that, this is not a major issue as I always shoot RAW, and this can easily be corrected in post. Most likely the slight color balance issues were getting worse at lower light: “The D800 was noticeably sharper, while the Mark III produced more accurate colors, with a superior white balance system.” – http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/Features/Head-to-Head-Nikon-D800-vs-Canon-5D-Mark-III.htm

Long exposure artifacts

When taking very long photos the D800 was introducing a lot of random white spots into photos, I would not consider them to be “hot” pixels, but they were quite strange. a quick Google search later and I discover it’s a nice feature: http://scottreither.com/blogwp/2012/07/01/nikon-d800-e-long-exposure-issues-problems-2/ & http://www.flickr.com/groups/1567431@N22/discuss/72157632780538698/ are two such examples.

Conclusion:

I think this video shows most of the points above: http://vimeo.com/42381520. You can clearly see the under exposure, incorrect color balance, and some noise being introduced, even at 1/50. Extend that to a 5 min exposure and it all goes pear shaped.

There is no doubt that during the day or in moderately low light the D800 will perform as well a a 5DmX, if not better. However at extreme low light I do not believe the D800 is the best choice. It’s clear, at least to me, that this is pushing the camera to it’s limits. So for the time being I will hold onto my 5DmII, and hope that Canon will introduce some of the new options in their next 5D body, along with maybe a few more Mega Pixels.

Also, D300s Frames Per Second?

This is completely not related, but a surprise to be sure. We all like to get the best out of our gear, so I always set my camera to 14-bit RAW were possible. With the D300s I noticed something interesting, the factory setting is only 12-bit RAW, thus allowing up to 7.5fps dependent on other settings. However increasing the quality to 14-bit RAW reduced the fps to 2.5 max (ouch). I rarely shoot more than one frame at a time and could not care less. However  I wondered if this was just a marketing “trick” from Nikon’s to make the camera look better than it really is? How fast would a Canon body be at 12-bit RAW?

Lead Pipe & Shot Factory Melbourne, a photo by Brendan Davey on Flickr.

I took this picture on a recent work trip in Melbourne. I was not even aware the place existed. very impressive, my 24mm lens had not chance of getting top to bottom.

Sydney Cove right, a photo by Brendan Davey on Flickr.

I recently revisited Sydney Harbor for some shooting, it was a very windy night, and my tripod was quite unstable, I was going to all sorts of measures to make sure the wind was kept at bay. I even shot a few shots with my camera on the ground.

The B&W 10 Stop filter was used for the majority of the shots, making it worse with 30 second exposures, and I did miss my old 16-35mm f2.8L lens as the 24mm f1.4L II could just not get as wide, although it was sharper, provided you could keep the camera still.

Fire Storm 2, a photo by Brendan Davey on Flickr.

First attempt at steel wool light painting last night. Very hard to get the exposure correct as the light affect it quite dramatic when compared to the dark background. I think this would work well in a low lit residential area. The sparks and bits flung out during the process are quite dangerous, starting spot fires and burning the person holding the steel wool as they spin it if your not careful. I have posted more on my flickr account if you would like to see more.

Iron Port Side, a photo by Brendan Davey on Flickr.

Today my Flickr account reached 50,000 all time photo views. Wow, that’s a lot of people looking at my photos, If you are one of those 50,000, THANK YOU!

Serenity, a photo by Brendan Davey on Flickr.

It’s surprising just how well some of these old Tasmanian buildings have weathered. I have no doubt there are a few leaks in the roof, but overall I found this building to be in great shape, complete with wood shingled roof and log walls (including the cement / mud filling).

Southern Lights in Storm Bay #2, a photo by Brendan Davey on Flickr.

That’s all it takes. Finally I got the Southern Lights over the Iron Pot in Storm Bay. They were not as strong as they had been on Sunday night, and the weather deteriorated very quickly. But I manged to get a few shots before I had to pull the plug.

There were quite a few people trying their luck at the lookout overlooking Betsy Island. I think they had all left it to late (10-12pm), and there was almost nothing left of the Aurora.

Autumn, a photo by Brendan Davey on Flickr.

Starting this Tuesday the 17th, two of my works will be on display at The Barn and Schoolhouse Galley, Rosny, next to Eastlands shopping centre.

Until the 9th of August The Clarence Open Art Comp has 270 pieces of artwork on display. all at very reasonable prices, and I would say there would be something for everyone there.

Iron Pot #1, a photo by Brendan Davey on Flickr.

Words you don’t really want to hear when you waiting for an Aurora.

“IPS GEOSTAT ALERT NUMBER 140: GEOMAGNETIC STORM FAILED TO EVENTUATE ISSUED AT 0402 UT ON 11 Jul 2012 BY IPS RADIO AND SPACE SERVICES FROM THE AUSTRALIAN SPACE FORECAST CENTRE”

IPS Space weather is great site for getting alerts and warnings about, well, space weather. I must admit trying to get a clear cold night with no moon and the right conditions for a geomagnetic storm to occur all at the same time is quite difficult. Particularly when you need the storm to be big enough to see the aurora from a location 42 Degrees South.