Friday Photo #271- Vik Aurora

Photo: Northern lights over Vik beach, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. March 4, 2018. 00:25

I posted a similar image to this the other week – Friday Photo #268 – where the moon was directly over the beach. A couple weeks later, and the moon was more or less behind me, and out of the scene.

This night was quite amazing, with the aurora dancing with stunning speed and filling the sky from horizon to horizon! With nearly full moon lighting up the landscape, it was possible to shoot with a relatively fast shutter speed of 2 seconds, which for northern lights is pretty good!

On nights like this, 14mm is simply not wide enough. I want to show what is happening in the sky, yet I also want enough of a foreground to anchor the image and make it a decent composition. So I was shooting foreground and sky images in quick succession – it is important to be fast when the aurora is dancing so quickly, otherwise the reflections might not line up correctly if the aurora has moved between shots.

I wish Lofoten had more snow though, would have been a fantastic image with bright white mountains instead of a somewhat ugly brown on this night…

Camera Info:
Nikon D810
Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8
14mm
ISO 2000
f 3.2
2 seconds
WB Daylight
2 images – top, bottom