With Nasa claiming that this year is the best ever for seeing the Northern Lights, many people are heading north to capture the magical experience on film.
Here are Your Hols, we know how difficult that can be from past experience where we’ve returned with almost black images that look nothing like the real thing.
So others don’t make the same mistake, specialist holiday company Explorers Astronomy Tours has the following expert tips to help travellers get the perfect shot:
- Ensure you have lots of space on your memory card; you may not get this chance again!
- Fully charge your camera battery, as cold weather and long exposures sap power
- Switch off your auto-focus and the flash (or put black tape over it)
- Select the daylight setting and remove any UV or polarizing filters
- Adjust the ISO to 800 or 1600 – the darker the sky, the higher it should be
- Use the widest lens you have and the widest aperture (choose the lowest f/ number)
- Set the exposure time to 5 – 20 seconds, or less if the lights are changing rapidly
- Hold the camera steady with a tripod or rest it somewhere, else you’ll get blurry shots
- Be patient, the lights are unpredictable but well worth waiting for!
Explorers has more than 30 years’ experience of arranging astronomy tours, sets the dates for all of its Northern Lights tours around new moons to reduce light interference and to maximise the chance of witnessing the incredible display of light.
The company’s new Northern Lights Short Break (five-days from £899 without flights, from £1,099pp with flights) stays on the shores of Lake Myvatn in northern Iceland, which is ideally located to explore rugged landscapes, snow-covered volcanoes, icy waterfalls and natural springs by day, and sufficiently remote to experience a colourful display of the lights by night. The trips are accompanied by leading astronomy experts.
Click here to book with Astronomy Tours
