Northern Lights Photography: A Practical Guide

Photographing the Northern Lights is more forgiving than it looks — you don’t need professional gear, but you do need a few basics right, since the aurora behaves very differently from anything a camera is set up to shoot by default.

The essentials

• A tripod — non-negotiable. Any hand-held shot at the exposure lengths the aurora needs will blur.
• Manual mode, if your camera has it — auto settings will consistently underexpose or misfocus on a dark sky.
• Manual focus set to infinity — autofocus struggles badly in low light; focus on a distant light before the sky goes fully dark, then leave it.
• A remote shutter or timer — pressing the shutter by hand can shake a long exposure.

Starting camera settings

A reasonable starting point on a dedicated camera: wide aperture (f/2.8 or as low as your lens allows), ISO 1600–3200, and a shutter speed of 5–15 seconds — faster for a bright, fast-moving aurora, slower for a faint one. Review your first shot and adjust from there rather than guessing blind.

Phone photography has come a long way

Recent smartphones with a dedicated night mode can capture a genuinely strong aurora with a tripod or even a stable surface — set the longest available exposure and keep the phone completely still.

The eye and the camera see the aurora differently — a display that looks pale grey-green to your eyes can show up vividly in a long exposure.