Photographing the Northern lights

Also in this Edition

• Viewer Mail
• The Usual Announcements
• Personal Appearances
• Next Time in Cameracraft

Photographing the Northern Lights

I receive a lot of requests around Aurora Borealis season asking for tips for photographing the Northern Lights.  I usually tell them that it's no different from doing any other kind of long exposures - but you have to do a few extra things to make it look the way it looked to your eyes.

1) Shoot RAW.  This is because RAW files are more maleable that .jpgs, plus it's almost impossible to know what white balance setting to use.  When you shoot RAW you can determine the white balance when you open the file.  (As always, click on any image to view larger and sharper.)

Why I Don't Recommend the Leica Monochrom Cameras

In This Issue

• Why I Don't Recommend the Leica Monochrom Cameras
• Photography Isn't Art
• Announcements of Upcoming Events (Seminars, Safari, Cameracraft Magazine)
• My New Competition
• Live Streaming with the Sony A7 IV
• Geeking with Gary (google URL shortener depreciation)

Let's get right to it then, shall we?

Why I Don't Recommend the Leica Monochrom Cameras

One of the attendees of the Plymouth seminar in April had one of Leica's B&W Monochrom(e) cameras, which promised much higher image quality because there was no RGB layer on top of the sensor, completely eliminating the need for the demosiacing step that adds color to the image.  He was very proud of his acquisition.  During the seminar I explained why I would never recommend one (and would never use one myself).  Sure, it takes you back to the days of shooting B&W film, and sure, the promise of better quality images is quite appealing (even if it's only a theoretical advantage), but ultimately you give up a lot of control over how your final image is rendered.

Then I showed the attendees some examples of what you can get if you start with a color image and use Photoshop's Channel Mixer to control how individual colors get rendered to specific shades of grey (click on any image to view larger and sharper):

Normally green and red will render as the same shade of grey when shot in B&W mode; using Photoshop's Channel Mixer lets you dictate how certain colors will translate to which shade of grey.

This last imagae was made in a B&W darkroom, starting with a color negative and using two different colored filters in the enlarger to influence how certain colors would render.