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Arctic Norway in January.
I'm sitting down by the log fire after two weeks of shooting in the far north. I have a folder with 1TB of RAW files to rummage through. Might take a while :)
This image was taken in Grovfjord, a real hidden gem that sits half way between Senja and Lofoten. Most people think of January as one of the dark winter months, but there is just enough light to bring the colours too :)
I love the combination of winter cold and clear skies. Indeed the coldest days are the clearest up here.
Blue skies, a fjord freezing over with ice, and just a hint of sun even though it's still below the horizon at this time of year.
Sometimes when I sit and watch the fire, I can almost imagine what the sun is like. The fluidity. The motion. The flux and chaos.
Our little planet is so calm and gentle in comparison to most of the known universe.
I'm often asked what lenses to pack for travel in the Arctic, and while I lament the chore of lugging about a telephoto there are the occasional moments when punching in to a mountain ridge is exactly the creative direction I want to take.
This is a popular walk with locals in the Grovfjord area. My idea of a walk however usually ends in hotdogs or cinnamon scrolls :)
Stepped out this morning when I saw the light hitting nearby peaks. It started off pink but turned a little peach by the time I got out there with a lens :)
Every so often I remember to try a panorama of the location where I am. Am rarely disappointed. Something about the compression plus wide aspect feels lovely compared to just shooting with a super wide lens.
Anyhoo, will start sharing pics outside of Grovfjord soon. Still working my way through the backlog of RAW files. This was taken yesterday when the light was peachy.
Early January in Tromsø is a great time to catch some Nacreous Clouds. We saw a heap of these over the course of a week. They don't photograph very well though, as a lack of structure/texture is their nature.
These kinds of clouds are caused by sunlight over the horizon hitting high altitude clouds.
There are loads of really cool mountains around Narvik.
Most folks think of Tromsø or Lofoten or Senja. Narkiv and points south are pretty special as well. Can recommend.
Hoping to get a nice timelapse out of this scene today. Clear skies are such a treat in the middle of winter.
Quick and dirty TL from last night. Gentle activity and a little extra colour before the high clouds claimed the night.
Time lapse from Grovfjord, with the midday sun clipping the horizon and so very very nearly popping through to greet the village.
Let the sun shine in.
Today we had lots of lovely sunshine kissing the cheeks. I love the combination of sunny and cold.
I did leave the comfort of my log fire last night, and the clouds did clear away in time for a little aurora activity around midnight.
This planet is just such a remarkable place to live. It's worth preserving.
Two things I wanna point out about the techy stuff.
Firstly, the scene always always looks brighter on screen in the night than it actually captures. In this case I ended up adding another 2 stops of exposure in post, which is very naughty. Pushing an underexposed file at high ISO is a great way to maximise noise!
Second, my preference is to edit as little as possible, and dial down the saturation. The defaults are too intense for me, and very misleading.
Today was lovely.
Am very lucky to share so much of my life with people who show me a path to being my best self.
This evening we got a little aurora dancing before dinner.
Am starting to get a better knack for reading the satellite data. I still tend to be overly optimistic about how quickly the space weather will arrive on earth, but at least I was ready and waiting when the nordlys began their thing.
It's a foxy morning here in Norway. Little paw prints leaving a trail in the snow, and purple hues filling the fjord.
Today just keeps getting better. A hint of sunlight across the salt lake, and time stands still.
This time of year we very excited to see the sun. It reaches out across the frozen lakes, painting in the snow and ice with golden tones. I love it.
From two nights ago. We had clear skies last night but pretty close to zero solar wind. Plenty of stars but no aurora.
Some nights it's on fire, some nights it's asleep :)
Textures and a mood.
These two images are from several weeks ago when we visited a Sami family and got a chance to say hello to a few of their herd.
If you know nothing about the Sami people, then it's worth seeking those who wish to share their stories. These are the people who inhabited the Arctic long before the crowns made it up north. There is great diversity in culture and language across the Sami, and a deep connection to the reindeer.
I wish more people could see the beauty in our world. The things that make this planet remarkable. The little details. The grandeur of its complexity. The harmony of nature. The preciousness of our very existence.
I wish every human on the planet could experience the beauty I've seen, and not just from the photos.
@ewen@photog.socialCurrent mood.
A hint of colour in the clouds from a trip to Senja a few weeks back. The sun wasn't yet brave enough to peak over the horizon, but was throwing a few rays for the clouds to catch.
Flashback to a couple of weeks ago, our first night arriving into Senja. Had a lot of aurora activity through the night, and a beautiful location to enjoy the photography.
Today it's still 5°C outside and rainy, and most of the snow is long gone. These heat bubbles in the Arctic look like a permanent feature of winter now. That makes life much harder for chasing auroras in the night.
The snow came home today!
OMG the change in mood to look out the windows and see a foot of fluffy white stuff in every direction.
Some folks get sad in winter from a lack of sunlight. I get sad from a lack of snow. Climate Change is wrecking the party in Arctic Norway, and we've had weeks of rain instead of snow. But today is a good day. Today is lovely.
Was a bit slow of the mark to notice we had clear skies tonight, and when I stepped outside to check the nordlys were already dancing.
Was a lovely show. The moon is super full tonight and lighting up everything. Hence the intense colours. Regardless, this moment of aurora was good enough to compete with the street light just behind the house :)
Ended up with more clear skies tonight, despite the forecast. Was testing out the S&Q video mode on the new camera today and it happened to be rolling when the aurora spiked in the early evening.
I love a little moonlight with aurora photography, even a full moon.
Here's a lowres version so I don't fill up the hard drive space on our mastodon instance :)
This morning we had a hint of light getting underneath the snow clouds. Enough to make us smile.
I'm using a 60-600mm telephoto by Sigma for this scene. It's a big lens that I usually don't make an effort to take off the shelf. This winter I've really loved having it with me for chasing birds and snow capped peaks.
Last shot of the night.
Clouds were rolling in and hiding the aurora activity. A few embers left at the camp fire. One of those night were a bunch of things lined up at the same time.
Full moon rising high enough over the mountain to paint across this part of the valley. Fresh powder snow the last few days, but not too deep than I can't walk through it. Warm conditions the week before so the creek was running, and hadn't frozen over yet.
Have been digging deep into DxO PhotoLab for my aurora photos and have been amazed just how much better the results are when pushing lenses to the limit.
It handles noise much better than Capture One, while still holding onto detail. And the lens optimisation for my Sigma 14-24mm is just amazing. Never seen such clarity in my night shots before.
Can't believe the software can make such an impact.
That image was taken with the Lumix S9 + Sigma 14-24mm F2.8, and edited in DxO PhotoLab 6.
I am several years behind in my version of PhotoLab, I think the current version is 8 and there's a new one due soon. No need to subscribe either. Pay once.
What is great about DxO is the software downloads whatever lens and camera modules as required. You don't need to buy a new update just to use your new camera.
The interface is nice enough. Simple and effective.
Here's a treat for being good this week, a timelapse of the forest last night in Arctic Norway.
There's a very very big mountain to the south of this creek that holds back the clouds. We constantly get long patches of clear sky even when the entire region is clouded over. And sometimes the aurora activity kicks up at the same time. That's a win.
The joy of the unexpected.
Yesterday was by any measure a totally shit day for me. Except for one brief break in the clouds. Metaphorical and literal.
I stepped outside at twilight to watch another aurora, and over the next hour the cloud cover thinned. And it was a marvellous show. I decided to grab a camera and start a timelapse in case more nordlys arrived... and I got lucky
One of the best auroras I've ever seen.
@ewen Mordor vibes, for sure.
@ewen Senja? Wait, that's where I just was over New Years!
@ewen This really is awesome and unique, Ewen. Great perspective. And it almost feels like daylight... with a white balance of a pure white spotlight.
I even had to flatten the saturation. Camera sensors over egg the colours in these situations.
@ewen I truly adore this photo.
#FBPE 
@ewen What a magical spot!
@ewen My husband has been using DxO for, I'd imagine, over a decade, and it's always staggering the level of detail it can push back into images.
Good stuff :) And at the right price!
@ewen guess I’ll have a look at DxO then. Still use Capture One Pro 22 but am sick of their pricing strategy and even more so about their support policy. Every time macOS has a major update it’s anyone’s guess if C1 still works.
I don’t have any newer cameras that aren’t supported but know DxO adds support for it even to older versions of their software is great.
Very nice. We're off into the Arctic realm of Norway in a few weeks' time, and hoping to get some opportunity to see and capture something similar.
Fingers crossed for some clear skies and good auroras on your travels.
I made a video last year about packing camera gear for auroras. In case that's useful to you.
Thanks. We won't be too disappointed if there's no great aurora activity as we've seen it a few times now and it's not the main purpose of the trip, anyway; more just to get over the Arctic Circle and to some places we've not been to before. Getting as high up as Alta on this trip.
No special aurora lens for me and no intention to try time lapse, but the noise suppression on my R6 with the 24-105L series should be good enough for my needs at f/4.
@ewen Spectacular!
@ewen And where are you at the moment, Ewen?
Half way between Lofoten and Tromsø :)
Winter has run away though. It's been 8°C+ for the last few days or maybe a week now. Not gonna see temperatures below zero for another few weeks it would seem.
Climate change is here.
@ewen Climate change is here. We arrived in Lofoten about a week ago and had heavy snow. Now mostly gone.
Hope you get some clear skies. There's a certain charm to these moonless nights. Hides the lack of snow at least!
@ewen Fingers crossed for clear skies a little later tonight
Just checked the forecast. Looks like very clear skies after midnight! Better get a nap now, you'll be up late tonight!
@ewen That’s the plan
The aurora looks to be starting up in about half an hour or so. Gonna be a hammer drop when it does. Bodes for a big night ahead.
Share some pics tomorrow hey!
@ewen Very cool. And thanks for the informative Alt Text, a nice bonus :)
@ewen
Can you tell us roughly how much the video has been sped up please?
These were 4sec exposures, played back at 25fps.
One second of video is 100sec of sky.
@ewen Thanks Ewen, I've never seen a proper aurora, so it's hard for me to judge.
I love the way time-lapse reveals the movement. And how cameras can see the detail or eyes cannot!
I made a video about that last year...
https://youtu.be/6_ze-1ga64o
I’m still not quite sure what they may look like, in skies where they are obviously visible, because, until recently at least, most video showing their movement has been time lapse rather than real time, in part to manage low light concerns.
Only recently have I seen video footage with people walking in the shot at all, and at a normal walking pace.
@Chancerubbage @Nick_Stevens_graphics
They look different according to the person as well, and your experience in perceiving the night sky. And according to the intensity of the event of course.
Just the act of taking a photo trains your brain to interpret what your eyes see.
And it depends on the night. Moonlight really helps (especially for video). Most people only share the super bright phase, which is best easy to take in. A soft glow on the horizon not so much :)
@ewen
Beautiful!
@ewen this is gorgeous; thanks for sharing (esp. for those of us far enough south to rarely if ever see such a phenomenon)
@ewen We got a great show here too!
But I’ll have to wait until I get home before I can assemble my timelapses. It will be worth it.
Marvellous :)
@ewen
That is so cool!!!
@inarticulatequilter
@ewen @ambivalena this woud be something for you I think :)
I was surprised to see clear skies where I was. Mostly cloudy through the evening. Aurora luck is so random.
@ewen how many x real speed is that ?
Roughly 125x
4sec exposures plus 1sec gaps played at 25fps. Every one second of video is 125 seconds of movement.