What a night. I finally got to photograph the Aurora Borealis with my new Nikon D700. Just around 11:30pm I peeked outside to find some decent activity. The
UAF Geophysical Institute forecast gave tonight a 3 out of 10.
These photos were taken with a Nikon D700 and Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 wide angle lens.
Typically I had the camera set on manual priority and the aperture wide open. Since it was my first time using this camera I did a lot of experimenting with shutter speeds and ISO settings. I still have a lot to learn. After about 50 minutes both my batteries died. Despite rotating them through my warm parka, they quit on me. My Nikon MC36 wired remote stopped working after about 30 minutes. So I had to switch to timer delay at two seconds. The air temperature was about -44F.
Most of these shots are looking north by north-west from Arctic Village, across the Chandalar River. The moon shots are looking east.
I was amazed how this camera captured the light, especially compared to my old D80. I used to crank all the settings way up just to capture anything, that was partially my lenses, and partially the camera. I'm still playing with some settings on the D700. I feel like all the photos have a pretty visible vignette. I might either need to turn the vignette control on high, or maybe play with my aperture, though in the dark I don't know what luck I'll have.
The moon coming up was just priceless. I had ample time to play with no moonlight first, then as it creeped up, the northern lights dimmed a bit. I snatched a few moon solo shots, then almost as if they rehearsed it together the moon and aurora started talking to one another, it was awesome. As I'm still learning how to use this camera in the dark, I took a lot of wasted shots, and at times had to turn on my headlamp to make adjustments, ruining my night vision.
These two are my favorite.
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