# Newbie northern lights



## Benjay (Mar 17, 2013)

Ok so I had planned on getting into photography mainly for pictures of my cars but also to get back into it in general as it was a bit of a hobby when I was younger. 

As me and my other half rarely have time off together we've went and booked a trip to Iceland for a few days in the hope that we will see the northern lights as apparently between now and march due to solar activity they will be even more spectacular than normal ! 

Problem is as it's been such a rush " flights are booked for 27th of December" I haven't had much time to do much in depth research on cameras and also will not have a lot of time to practice but hey ho where better to mess about and practice than in Iceland with hopefully such an amazing subject to photograph! 

As a totally newbie to the whole thing my question is would this be a good camera ? 

Nikon D3200 

I also plan to get a tripod 

Any tips or advice welcome, thanks for reading!


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## Brazo (Oct 27, 2005)

As good as any in that price range.

What you really need to capture the lights is a fast-ish wide angle lens.


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## Skimask (Jan 7, 2012)

There are 2 Facebook groups which are excellent. When a display is in progress, alerts are issued.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/341492972554625/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/AuroraUK/

There are some good tips in the 'files' section on photographing aurora.


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## buckas (Jun 13, 2008)

Write up on my Iceland trip for some pointers of where to visit

http://drewbuckleyphotography.com/iceland-land-of-fire-and-ice/

Always Tripod with shutter release (lockable), shutter length will depend on how strong the display is and how fast it shifts. Anywhere from 1 second to 20, even 30 seconds, aperture not necessarily wide open especially if you have a landscape foreground. ISO again, doesn't have to be through the roof, again with the aperture, both of these values will depend on the display strength and need to be adjusted accordingly to get the best trade off for light intake/depth of field/noise.

There's no real set in stone settings as with anything with photography, it's very changeable

drew


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## Benjay (Mar 17, 2013)

Thanks for the replies guys , ordered the camera and tripod today so should arrive towards the end of this week at some point leaving me with at least some time to get to grips with it properly before Iceland!

Wow buckas your trip to Iceland looks amazing! Great write up too, can't wait to go now!


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## Gussy (Oct 12, 2007)

You'll have a great time in Iceland, it's a fantastic country. Myself and the missus were Auora chasing this year in Canada / Alaska. Managed to get some nice shots with our Nikon 5200 on 15sec exposure, f5, ISO 1600. You can certainly play around with the settings though.


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## buckas (Jun 13, 2008)

Important aspect as well from the examples above, is manual focus on the stars (use live view and magnify) - nothing worse that out of focus stars. And think about composition just like a normal landscape image


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