This was the reason we went to Canada in March 2012.
For some odd reason I remember thinking it was supposed to be the 20 or 30 year peak. But every article I read now says that they go on an 11 year cycle, with 2013 the peak. Whatever. It was good when we went in 2012.
Our tour included 3 consecutive viewing nights. Each night we were collected from our hotel at around 10pm. The day before we had been kitted out in proper clothing, to make sure we were ready for the elements. This really was important – you end up sitting in a field from 11pm to 3am each night, waiting for the lights to start. It gets a mite bit cold.
The lights were surprisingly predicable. Each night the guide was about to give up and tell us it was time to go home, when they started at around 2am.
We learnt on the first day how important a tripod was. Everybody had good-looking cameras, and I had brought my own small gorillapod tripod, assuming I could prop it on a fence, or the ground. But a full-size tripod is what you really need.
The tour company had a minivan, so it catered for around 10 people. They drove us to what looked like a random paddock on the outskirts of town, dotted with a handful of large canvas tents.
There was tea and coffee – and I definitely remember red wine – I just can’t remember if we had brought that ourselves. And a large heater/stove inside the tent, that was 100% necessary to warm yourself up, every now and then.
We met a lovely Australian girl who was travelling alone before visiting her sister in the states, so she and I ended up sitting together each night, quickly claiming one of the small handful of full-sized tripods that were available. I can’t remember her name now – let’s call her Lisa.
I do have to shout out to LC at this point. He really isn’t a camera guy, so he was extremely gentlemanly and patient. He brought deck chairs out to where Lisa and I were standing with our cameras and tripods. He alternated between bringing us hot chocolates, biscuits and red wine, while we waited out in the paddock for the lights to start.
Here is a view of the tents that were our home base for 3-4 hours each night.
We took position a distance from the tents, so that we wouldn’t be affected by the light from the stoves. from other people. It was quite weird walking out into a paddock in the middle of nowhere in a strange country, deliberately trying to stay away from other people. It was hard to see the other groups of photographers, which is why I was surprised to catch them in this photo.
I have to admit that the following photo was processed. All the others on this page were as they came out of the camera, although reduced in size and resolution. But this one was run through Photoshop with auto-tone/auto-colour/auto-contrast/sharpen. It turned out a heck of a lot lighter than it originally was, but it does show how many stars we saw. And yes, there was a shooting star.
This was a good start.
This one had some serious strength to it.
And this one was my favourite – the sky really was dancing for this one.
It’s weird. These photos make it look like the lights are a bright colourful beam in the sky.
But it wasn’t. Most of the time the lights were wisps of pale whitish cloud – with only the faintest tinge of colour. When the guide got excited and squealed out that they were starting, we looked at each other and thought she was making it up. It was only when photographed with a slow exposure camera that they appeared with the bright green.
But when they start dancing, that’s when the magic starts. Again, they were pale in colour for us, but to see the skies moving and dancing is truly awesome.
I’m not an experienced photographer. I bought my camera specifically to photograph the northern lights, but I hadn’t practised night photography before. On the first day I accidentally had one of the settings on auto, so none of the photos worked. The second day I visited a camera store and asked for advice. He recommended a 30 second exposure, but I can’t remember the other settings. I used a Lumix G3, and transferred the photos each night to my old Acer tablet via USB/card reader as backup. That’s as technical as I got.
