How to Photograph The Northern Lights

The geomagnetic storms are really strong in this part of the solar cycle, giving you the best chance at some great northern lights photography.

It's late 2024 as I write this, and we're at the solar maximum – the shows will be most intense for the next year or so.

You've likely seen some great aurora photos, now keep an eye on the aurora forecast because it's your chance to take your own.

That said, Aurora Borealis photography can be a challenge. This post will help you learn how to set your mobile phone or digital camera up for the best chance of capturing those great photos!

All rights reserved - images may not be reproduced, copied, downloaded or transmitted in any form or manipulated without the written permission of Marie & Michael Porter, 2 Nerds in a Truck.

Can I see Northern Lights Tonight? Understanding the Aurora Forecast
Aurora Hunting: How to See the Northern Lights
Where to See Northern Lights in Ontario

What You Need to Know

Before you load up the car, it's a good idea to know a bit about aurora activity in general. You don't want to be standing out in cold weather if there's a very low chance of a show.

You need the aurora conditions to come together and a clear night sky to the north for viewing.

Aurora Basics

Solar flares can cause Earth-directed coronal mass ejections, which throw charged particles toward Earth. These interact with Earth's magnetic field and can cause glowing lights in various colors.

Notice how I keep saying “can”? It's not easy to predict when a show will occur, or the intensity of the aurora.

Your camera will show the aurora with much more intensity than the naked eye. It's really fun to watch in person, but the photos will really make everything pop out!

Predicting Aurora

Some of the really big expected shows might make the news, but there are plenty of shows that never make the headlines.

The Kp index might be high, but there's a lot more science to an aurora forecast than that.

Check out our post about everything you need to know about the northern lights to learn more about how to predict when you'll get northern lights activity.

Best Places to Shoot the Northern Lights

You'll want to scout out a few locations in advance, so you can pick which one has the best weather conditions that night.

These locations should have clear skies to the north – the south end of a lake is a great spot. You'll want to be away from large cities to prevent light pollution.

Check out our guide on Aurora Hunting: How to See the Northern Lights for more details.

If you're located in or near Ontario, we have more specific info for you: Where to See Northern Lights in Ontario.

Also keep in mind moonrise and moonset, especially near a full moon. A new moon is best, it'll leave a clear sky the entire time for a great show!

A full moon, or close to it, will illuminate your foreground – which can be good – but it'll make it challenging to get a good vibrant exposure of the aurora. The image below was taken during a full moon.

Photography Basics

Here's a quick primer on the terms you'll encounter with photography and how they relate to each other.

ISO

Think of ISO like the knob on a stereo. Higher ISO is turning up the sensor gain – making your image brighter. The thing is, too high ISO and you'll get poor image quality, very grainy photos.

How high is high? It totally depends on the camera! You'll want to experiment to find where the quality goes to an unacceptable level for you.

Every time the ISO doubles, the image will be twice as bright, this is called a “stop” of light. Thus the progression of ISO 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400, 12800, 25600, 51200, and 102400 each provides an image twice as bright as the last – provided all other conditions are the same.

For reference, on my older Canon 5D MkI (that I purchased new in 2006), I don't go over ISO1600. My newer Canon R7, I try to use ISO6400 as the max, but sometimes I'll use ISO12800 if the show is really dim.

On our Samsung S24 cell phone, we generally don't go over ISO400.

I'll address figuring out your ideal ISO a bit later in this post.

Shutter Speed – Exposure Time

Modern cameras may or may not have a shutter, but the terms shutter time and exposure time mean the same thing. It's also called Integration Time in industrial settings.

Exposure time is the time the camera sensor is recording information. We will be using long exposure times for aurora photography. This longer shutter speed will capture more light, making images brighter.

Long exposure times mean we have to be concerned about camera shake. Any movement of the camera will translate into motion-blur in the image.

The other thing we have to be concerned about is star trails. With longer exposures, particularly at the poles, the motion of the stars relative to Earth will lead to a line instead of a point.

You'll see this clearly with shots 15 seconds and over, and a little with shots around 10 seconds. If these bother you, keep your exposure times under 10 seconds for best results.

I think star trails are kind of fun. Sometimes I'll adjust settings to take 30-seconds shots, just to get longer star trails.

Aperture

I'm going to gloss over the details of aperture and just describe this as how far physically open the camera lens is.

A larger aperture allows more light in. Exposure doubles for every square-root-of-two factor decrease in the aperture number.

This means that F5.6 is twice as bright as F8, F4 is twice as bright as F5.6, F2.8 is twice as bright as F4. The consequence is that the depth of field decreases with each increase in light.

Luckily, we don't care too much about depth of field in astrophotography or aurora photography.

It turns out that when you're focused to infinity – really far points – depth of field automatically increases and there aren't consequences unless you go really extreme.

I don't recommend shooting at F1.2, for example, because it can be tricky to hit focus properly. Most of us won't be shooting with a lens capable of that anyway.

Sensor size matters, but I'll skip the details for that. Just know that smaller sensors like cell phones automatically have a larger depth of field, which makes it less likely to get blurry photos due to slight misfocus.

Aperture size is a proportion to focal length, so you might see the numbers automatically change on your camera as you adjust zoom.

You also might notice that your exposure may change from one end of the zoom to the other, you'll need different settings to compensate.

How These Impact Image Brightness

Notice that all three of these can make your images brighter or darker? The trick is to balance the three to provide an overall image exposure that you want.

If we lock in the aperture to the values I recommend, then you only have to adjust two parameters – exposure time and ISO.

If we lower ISO to improve image quality, we need to increase exposure time to compensate, for example.

I like to start with the highest ISO I'm comfortable with – ISO6400 in my case – and adjust exposure time until I'm happy with the image brightness.

As mentioned earlier, this will vary WILDLY based on your camera.

Photographing Northern Lights with a Digital Camera

A phone camera is also a digital camera, but in this section I'm referring to something that resembles a film camera.

This could be a DSLR camera – digital single lens reflex camera, a mirrorless camera, or a compact digital camera (which are typically also mirrorless).

Generally there are more camera settings to adjust and less automatic-processing with these cameras, compared to cell phones, though you may have pre-sets that you can try out.

Be sure to have your camera manual handy, modern digital cameras have a lot of menus to search.

A few months ago I upgraded my Canon 5D MkI with a Canon R7 and I'm still finding new features in the menus.

You Need A Tripod For Aurora Borealis Photography

We'll talk a bit more about exposure time in a little bit, but you definitely cannot hold your camera still long enough for a good exposure, you will get blurry images from camera shake.

If for some reason you find yourself without a tripod, hold the camera firmly against a large boulder, deck railing, or post, and give it a shot (pun intended).

You'll be very limited in what kind of camera angles you can get, and you'll probably get a lot with blur anyway, but it's something.

I like a simple 3-way tripod head the best.

Once the legs are level, this allows me to quickly pan left and right without messing up anything else. It's simple to flip from horizontal to vertical shooting.

Carbon fiber tripods sound really cool, but I avoid them. In my opinion a somewhat heavy tripod will be helpful when it's windy, for more stability.

If it's extremely windy, I don't use the wind-up extension on my tripod, it isn't as stable as the base.

Digital Camera Mode

I always shoot aurora in manual mode, which is M on the dial. Manual settings allow you to be in full control.

Automatic exposure isn't going to work well when it's this dark anyway.

Digital Camera Aperture

Let's start with aperture, which depends on the lens. The lens will have a maximum aperture – remember that maximum aperture is a low number.

Most of the time, it's safe to shoot “wide open”, which is the maximum aperture.

The larger your aperture, the smaller the depth of field, which means we have to be more precise about focusing.

In general, lenses capable of extremely large apertures, also has extremely precise focusing ability.

Personally I wouldn't want to shoot any larger than F2.8 on a crop-body sensor, and F4 on full-frame cameras. This is to ensure that slight misfocussing won't impact the image significantly.

I don't have any wide angle lenses that can shoot any larger than F4 anyway, so I just leave mine wide open at all times.

Digital Camera ISO

ISO is going to depend a lot on the camera, and your required shutter speed.

For my Canon R7, I generally start with ISO6400 to help me determine the brightness of the aurora show.

If it's a bright show, I'll drop it down to ISO3200 for higher quality, or even ISO1600.

If I had a lens that could allow more light in – say F2.8, I could drop these down.

... So you can see where investing some more money in a better lens can result in higher quality images even beyond the quality of the optical design.

Digital Camera Exposure Time

Here's where there's a lot of different opinions! For me, I will start out around 8 seconds to determine where my exposure level is.

I generally keep my exposure times between 5 and 15 seconds. I know other photographers that keep their exposure times much faster, say 2 – 6 seconds.

Why does it matter? The longer your exposure time, the “softer” the aurora will be. By that I mean you won't get as crisp edges.

Aurora is constantly shifting, growing, and shrinking. You're essentially getting motion blur the longer you are exposing.

I'm willing to get a slightly softer image to keep my ISO lower. Others will run higher ISO to get crisper images.

Some get both – again by investing in a better lens, you can let more light in an run shorter exposure times and lower ISO.

Digital Camera Focus

You're probably not going to be able to get autofocus to work in aurora conditions. Be prepared in advance to set up manual focus.

With my older Canon 5D and EF lenses, this was easy! I just clicked the little switch from “AF” to “MF”, then turn the dial where I want it.

Lenses can go past infinity, so you want it at the infinity line, or just a tiny bit before it.

It's kind of fussy, and I really wish it had the old style window to mechanically set the focus.

Digital Camera Lens Selection

You're going to want a wide-angle lens available for aurora photography. Also having zoom lens on hand can be useful, because sometimes you want to hone in on a particular area.

The numbers on a lens are in millimeters, I'll skip the details again here, but just know that lower numbers means wider angle.

The numbers mean different things with different camera sensors, so you might see another set of numbers that are “35mm equivalent” as a standard way to compare.

I've been shooting with a Canon RF-S 10-22mm lens on my R7 – this is equivalent to 16-29mm on a full-frame 35mm system.

I wish I could go wider (smaller number) at times, but overall I'm very happy with the range it provides. It's a great budget lens, but the drawback is the aperture is F4.5-6.3 depending on zoom level.

As mentioned above, larger apertures let in more light, which means a lens with large aperture (small number) is called a fast lens – it's able to obtain proper exposure faster than a lens with a smaller aperture.

Digital Camera Tips and Tricks

• A digital camera is going to have more ability to go more intense with editing images in post processing. One strategy you can take is to intentionally underexpose images, knowing that you'll brighten them up later.
  
  What you're doing is hoping the post-processing will provide less image degradation than simply turning up the ISO. Or perhaps you're maxed out at ISO and want a brighter image without a greater exposure time.
• Keep checking your focus! It's so easy to bump it, and if it's only off by a bit you might not realize it for many, many shots. Ask me how I know. 🙁

Photographing Northern Lights with a Cell Phone

A cell phone has cameras integrated, but the camera sensor and lenses are generally much smaller than a digital camera. Software is key here, since there aren't physical controls like a DSLR.

You Need A Tripod For Aurora Borealis Photography

If you read the digital camera section above, you're already prepared for this. You definitely can't hand-hold your phone still long enough for a good exposure, you will get blurry images from camera shake.

A phone tripod can be a lot thinner and lighter than a camera tripod, in general. There's still an advantage to having a nice heavy base, but it's less pronounced.

Marie uses the XXZU 60" Camera Tripod with Travel Bag which is a super economical tripod that’s compatible with phones AND cameras. No complaints!

Worst case, if you forget your tripod, hold the phone tightly against a large boulder, deck railing, or post, and give it a shot (pun intended).

You'll be very limited in what kind of camera angles you can get, and you'll probably get a lot with blur anyway, but it's something.

I like a simple 3-way tripod head the best. Once the legs are level, this allows me to quickly pan left and right without messing up anything else.

It's simple to flip from horizontal to vertical shooting.

Cell Phone Camera Mode – Apps

You'll need to run an app that allows you to manually adjust settings for them.

On our Samsung Galaxy S24 phones, we use the “Expert Raw” app. You need something that has night mode or full manual mode for night photography.

These apps are great for Milky Way photography as well as pictures of the Northern Lights, so it's good to be familiar with the settings.

Going out on a non-aurora night to mess around with the settings is always a great idea - get acclimated to your equipment and software before it's "go time"!

Cell Phone Camera Aperture

Good news, the small sensor on your phone means that there's automatically a large depth-of-field.

This means that focus at or near infinity is really easy to get, and you can shoot wide open.

If it's an option, select the largest aperture available for your phone. This will have the lowest number of the avilable options. For example, F2.8 is larger than F4.

Cell Phone Camera ISO

I suggest starting with ISO400 to first dial in exposure. From there, feel free to increase it or decrease it, adjusting the exposure time to maintain the correct exposure.

Here's where things might get a little weird and counter-intuitive.

There's a lot going on in the software of your phone; it's designed to give you a really good image as best it can.

I've seen times where I increase ISO and the image gets much higher quality, and vice versa.

What I think it going on is automatic post-processing. I think the phone is taking the image I ask it to, then automatically “correcting” it to try to get me a well-exposed image.

This can be really frustrating when you're trying to dial things in and things seem to work backwards.

This could be something specific to my phone or app, so it can be worth looking for other apps if you aren't getting the results you like.

Cell Phone Camera Exposure Time

In Expert Raw, this is called “Speed”.

I think it's best to stay in the range of 8-10 seconds for your first few shots, to establish what will work best for your conditions.

I would start with 8 seconds and see what the exposure and quality look like. Feel free to jump up to 10 or even 15 seconds if needed.

Remember - the brighter the aurora, the shorter amount of time you can get away with.

On Marie's phone, 8 seconds and 400 ISO can be great for a moderate show, but will be completely over exposed for a really intense aurora display.

Also: Moonlight contributes to the brightness you're working with, in the same way.

Make sure to read my mini-rant in the ISO section above, things don't always behave like you think they should.

Cell Phone Camera Focus

You want your focus to be set to infinity.

If you can manually focus it through the software, it should be at the end to infinity, or the largest number available.

In Expert Raw, focus is a range from 0.0 to 1.0, so I use 1.0.

Cell Phone Camera Lens Selection

You might not be able to swap lenses like you can on many digital cameras, but most modern cell phones actually have multiple lenses built in.

On a cell phone, you might not see the zoom numbers in millimeters, you might see it as something like 0.6x, 1x, 2x, et cetera.

This is just a simplified system but we're going to be using those low-end numbers again, the 0.6x – 1.0x range for the most part.

Be aware that different zoom levels could use a different lens, which can significantly alter your exposure due to different aperture size and sensor characteristics.

It might seem like ultra-wide is the best, but you might find that using wide gives you better images, and it might be worth having less aurora in the image for that extra quality.

There are clip-on lens adapters available for cell phones. I tried one to see if I could get even wider angle images.

It did not work well.

Feel free to try them, they're cheap, but I wasn't able to get a better wide angle than my stock cell phone.

Cell Phone Photography Tips and Tricks

• I highly recommend going out and doing some astrophotography before an aurora show, to get familiar with your camera's settings. Hone in on the Milky Way, or use moonlight on trees to practice your settings.
  
  Being able to quickly dial in your exposure is important, sometimes a good show only lasts a few minutes!

Northern Lights Videos – Hyperlapse

Doing a traditional video of the aurora isn't going to work well. I've tried.

Even with a new, high-quality camera and adjusting the settings as best I can, the footage is extremely grainy.

Also, it's not very interesting because the aurora is moving so slowly.

The thing is, you don't really need traditional video.

Since aurora usually moves pretty slowly, it's actually a better experience for viewers if it's sped up. This allows us to take much longer exposure shots for each frame.

Hyperlapse is a fun tool on my phone, it can make a video of the aurora show!

With my Samsung Galaxy S24 and the standard Camera app, I select “more” then “hyperlapse”. I use a setting of 300x, which creates a movie at 300x speed.

You'll need a long time for a long clip, 1 hour of aurora will turn into a 12-second clip. So, you'll want to set the recording time to "infinity"/unlimited.

I set up my phone on one tripod while I use my digital camera to shoot manual photos, and just let it run for the duration of the show.

The hardest part is not adjusting it after you've started.

Even if you find there's a better (brighter or more interesting) section of the sky, I find it's better to just leave it and get the footage you've got instead of starting over.

If not, you can use an intervalometer shutter release and computer software to turn the frames to a video.

Make sure to do a test shot before starting the video!

I like to have a bit of the horizon in the shot, for perspective. If there's a lake, I like to catch the aurora's reflection in the water, a bit.

Also make sure it's level how you want it. If you have to adjust level in post processing, you crop out some of that aurora!

Post Processing Northern Nights Photos

Exactly how you perform the aurora post-processing is going to depend on what software you use.

I'll just give the basics of what I choose to do with my northern lights post processing. I use Adobe Photoshop with the Camera Raw plugin for my editing.

Some of the tools – texture and vibrance for example – are specific to this software, so I won't mention them, but those tools do similar effects to the things I mention.

Texture is similar to sharpening plus contrast, vibrance is similar to saturation.

Next I'll filter for only 5 star photos. If I have too many, I'll take my least favorites and make them 4 star (this makes it easy for me to go back and pick more to edit, if I'd like).

Once I have a short list of favorites, I'll edit each one individually.

Marie is more barbaric about this - she'll copy all the photos to a folder, delete a bunch she's not as fond of, and go from there.

She goes through them in Photoshop, closing the ones she doesn't like, and re-saving the ones she does.

I increase the saturation a lot. It makes the colors much more vibrant, of course.

I'm looking to make the colors intense without getting sections that are so saturated the details are missing.

Note: Marie does not tend to increase the saturation on her cell phone photos.

Hers come out much more saturated than the digital camera images - this is probably AI / automatic processing on the part of her phone.

Darken the shadows a bit to make sure the night sky looks black, and adjust the highlights as needed to keep the lights bright but not blown out.

Noise reduction, now this totally depends on my settings.

If I had to really push the ISO very high for the shot, it'll need more noise reduction. Lower ISO shots, I won't even bother to adjust this beyond the default setting in Photoshop Camera Raw.

Keep in mind that most of the time, you aren't going to really zoom in on the photo. If you're going to actually print the photo to a large size, you should spend more time fussing and making sure it looks great.

For my purposes, I view them on my computer and share them online.

There's no need for me to zoom in to make sure it's a perfect photo. I'd rather spend my time doing quick edits to more photos and sharing a dozen, rather then sharing one or two “perfect” shots.

These are my opinions to suit my taste of course, it's totally up to you how far you want to take your editing!

More Creative Techniques

There are lots of other techniques for fun creative shots, above these basics.

If there's anything you'd like to learn more about, comment here and I'll try to address them in future posts!

Places To See The Northern Lights

Looking for a few ideas on where to start with your Aurora Borealis hunting? We're a big fan of aurora hunting at Provincial Parks.

There's a BIG caveat here, though: You must be a registered CAMPER in order to be in the parks after 10 pm. Otherwise, expect some big fines.

Looking to book a camping spot to see the show? Here are a few suggestions!

Arrowhead Provincial Park
Awenda Provincial Park
Big Bay, Ontario
Bon Echo Provincial Park
Bruce Peninsula National Park
Canisbay Lake, Algonquin Provincial Park
Chutes Provincial Park
Driftwood Provincial Park
Killbear Provincial Park
Lake Superior Provincial Park
Pancake Bay Provincial Park
Pinery Provincial Park
Quetico Provincial Park
Sleeping Giant Provincial Park