Not the greatest, but I'm getting better

[Cicada]

My fishing buddy came up Friday night to get his trolling motor that we were fixing and kept me at Zorbaz until about midnight. Before I went to bed, I checked an aurora report and they were somewhat active, so I loaded up and headed out of town to give it a go. C&C welcome.

[Dbl]

I was shooting them as well in northern Wisconsin Friday night, I will post up a few when I get a chance this week. Don't want to jump on your shots.

You asked for some C&C so I hope this helps a bit. Looks like those first couple were underexposed a fair amount. ISO 800 is generally a bit low unless you under an eruption! The lights are not showing real bright and the give away is the dark skies with lack of stars. It looks like some stars were enhanced in the first shot? It looks a bit unnatural to have a few stars that bright.

The last shot at 1600 ISO is a bit better but a fair amount of noise is showing up. Most of my shots Friday night were in the 2000 to 6400 ISO. Did you end up bringing the exposure up in post processing? That would account for the noise being present. If you don't want to shoot higher ISO's you will have to increase your exposure time. Keep in mind that will also add some noise and blur the lights and stars due to moving aurora and the planet rotating.

Keep at it and check EVERY shot you take of the aurora in you screen. The settings can change very, very fast. Keep shooting, it only builds your experience and makes it so much easier to to dial in settings next time out!

[Cicada]

Thanks Dbl for the advice. I went out again last night, but I think I waited to long. The lights were just dull colors and not dancing at all. I tried increasing the ISO. Am I getting closer?

[Dbl]

Yes that looks much better. See how the sky opened up a bit more allowing you to see more stars? You get more definition to the lights themselves as well. The downside is any ground lights will also get brighter. Location, location, location will help with that. I saw the alerts last night but we had cloud cover down here. Very nice improvement. We seem to be getting regular nights with aurora so you should have plenty of opportunities to get more shots!

[Cicada]

Thanks again, you got me to try something I was afraid of,...higher ISO. I did have a better spot picked out in Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge, but there was a vehicle already there. Whether it was another photographer, couple "getting busy", or a drug deal going down, I didn't think I needed the shot that badly.

[Dbl]

Yeah I had one of those same situations last fall at a remote WMA. Vehicle pulled in while I was shooting and those were the same three things that ran through my mind!

[jmg]

Beautiful images. Don't get much chance to see the Auroras anymore. They were scary, and yet breathtaking, when I was a kid. Thanks for sharing.