Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) Kp9 over Kirkjufell, Iceland

Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) Kp9
Timelapse
Location: Kirkjufell, Iceland
Camera: Nikon D750
Lens: Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8
March, 2015

[@kittisiri]

@Bart Postma If I have to choose between those 2 lenses, I would choose 17-70mm f/2.8 because of it's wider aperture ring. First you need to set many things to manual: focus, iso, shutter speed, aperture. Turn off your Active D Lighting and VR in the lens also. Set your white balance to around 4000K and High ISO Noise Reduction to Normal. Long Exposure Noise Reduction to On/Off depends on you. If you're not in a hurry, I recommend On. In general, you may start with f/2.8, shutter speed 20 seconds, and change your ISO until you see the aurora. Around 1600 ISO as your starting point. If your shutter speed goes longer than 20 seconds, stars will begin to look more like a dash than a dot. It moves. How do I come with that number? Take 500/focal length (in full frame) which is 500/25.5 that's around 20 seconds. If you change lens, re calculate that number. Keep in mind that you may have to push your ISO up as high as 3200 or 6400 to start seeing the aurora. It depends on it's strength. Highly recommend the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 for D7000. It's pretty cheap and many consider it a go-to lens if they wanna shoot star photography. You get far far wider, and you can have longer shutter speed. So lower ISO and less noise. I used to own D7000 also. Great camera. For this VDO I think I push my ISO to around 6400 I can't remember. But I need the shutter to be pretty fast. One tips for the aurora hunting: clear sky is much important than aurora strength.

[@llBartll]

What settings did you use in terms of aperture, shutter speed and ISO (and focal length)? I'm using a D7000 (so crop) with Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 and I tried with F4, 15-20" and ISO somewhere between 400 and 800. Do you have any tips? I know that the max aperture from my lens is worse (I do have a 17-70 2.8-4 contemporary from Sigma as well, but I feel like 17mm on crop (25,5mm fullframe equivalent) might not be wide enough. High ISO performance and image quality are also far below the D750 but the D7000 should be able to do it I think. What is better: 17mm f/2.8 or is using f/4 at 10mm better?