Photography guide
How to photograph the northern lights
A camera sees the aurora better than your eyes do — it gathers light over seconds, so faint grey curtains turn vivid green and pink on screen. Get four things right — a wide lens wide open, a high ISO, a few seconds of shutter, and sharp focus on the stars — and you’ll come home with the shot. Here’s exactly how.
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The quick version
- Put the camera on a tripod.
- Switch to Manual mode.
- Open the aperture as wide as it goes — f/2.8 or faster.
- Set ISO 1600 and a 5-second shutter, and shoot RAW.
- Focus manually on a bright star.
Take a test frame, check the brightness, and adjust from there. Everything below is how to fine-tune those numbers for the night you’re actually under.
Camera settings for the aurora
There is no single “correct” exposure — the aurora ranges from a faint glow to a blazing, fast-moving storm, and your settings move with it. Use this as your starting point, then adjust:
| Setting | Start at | How to adjust |
|---|---|---|
| Mode | Manual (M) | Full control — the camera can’t meter a dark sky. |
| Aperture | f/2.8 or wider | Use the lowest f-number your lens has. Wider = more light. |
| ISO | 1600 | Raise to 3200–6400 if dark; drop to 800 if the aurora is bright. |
| Shutter | 5 seconds | Shorten (1–3s) for a bright, fast aurora to keep the curtains crisp; lengthen (10–20s) for a faint one. |
| Focus | Manual → infinity | Autofocus fails in the dark. Focus on a star (see below). |
| White balance | ~3500 K | Keeps the sky a natural blue. Shoot RAW and you can fix it later. |
| File format | RAW | Recovers colour and shadow detail JPEG throws away. |
Match the shutter to the aurora’s motion
This is the setting that separates a snapshot from a great frame. A slow, diffuse glow can take a 10–20 second exposure, which gathers more light and colour. But an active aurora moves — and a long exposure smears those beautiful vertical curtains into a flat green smudge. When it’s dancing, drop to 1–3 seconds to freeze the structure. If you also want pin-sharp stars, keep the shutter under roughly 500 ÷ your focal length seconds (so ~20s on a 24mm lens) to avoid star trails.
Focus — the one thing most people get wrong
More aurora shots are ruined by soft focus than by anything else. Autofocus hunts uselessly in the dark, so switch the lens to manual focus. Point at the brightest star or a distant light, turn on live-view, zoom in 10× on the screen, and rotate the focus ring until that point of light is the smallest, sharpest dot you can make it. Then don’t touch the ring — tape it if you have to.
The gear that actually matters
You don’t need the most expensive kit, but four things make the difference. (These are starting points — the full list is on our aurora gear guide.)
A camera with manual mode and good high-ISO.
Any mirrorless or DSLR body from the last decade works — newer sensors just give cleaner high-ISO files.
mirrorless or DSLR body →A fast, wide lens.
A wide-angle lens at f/2.8 or faster (14–24mm) is the single biggest upgrade — it captures more sky and far more light than a slow kit lens.
wide-angle lens at f/2.8 or faster →A sturdy tripod.
Every shot is a multi-second exposure, so a steady tripod is non-negotiable. Carbon fibre stays usable in the cold and packs light.
tripod →A remote or intervalometer.
Pressing the shutter shakes the camera; a remote shutter release (or the 2-second self-timer) avoids it, and an intervalometer lets you shoot time-lapses hands-free.
remote shutter release →Spare batteries.
Cold murders battery life — keep spares in an inside pocket and rotate them as they fade.
spares →Composition: give the sky something to dance over
A frame of pure sky gets boring fast. The best aurora photos have a foreground — a mountain, a cabin, a lone tree, a person with a head-torch for scale. Still water doubles the show as a reflection; a road or river leads the eye in. Put the horizon low to let the lights fill the frame, and place your point of interest off-centre.
How to photograph the aurora on a phone
Modern phones are genuinely good at this. Use Night mode (iPhone and most Android cameras) and, crucially, hold the phone dead still — prop it on a wall, a car roof, or a small phone tripod, because Night mode takes a multi-second exposure. Tap to focus on a bright star or distant light, nudge the exposure down if the foreground blows out, and let it run for 3–10 seconds. On newer iPhones and Pixels you can set the exposure time manually for even better results.
Common mistakes to avoid
You still have to be under an active, dark, clear sky
The best settings in the world can’t photograph an aurora that isn’t there. You need geomagnetic activity reaching your latitude, a dark sky (no midnight sun, little moon) and clear weather — which is exactly what our live forecast checks for your location. Plan the trip with the best time to go and where the aurora reaches, then head out when the odds are good.
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