I plan on a ~3 week trip through the Northwest passage to Greenland this fall. Clouds permitting I expect to see Aurora and would like to get a few (or even one) good photo. The problem is that I will not be on land at night. I will be on a small cruise ship.
Because the ship is moving/rocking and the long exposure likely required, is it likely to produce a good photo without motion blur? What techniques or equipment can help with this?
My equipment will be a Canon R5 with either the RF15-35mm 2.8L or something rented such as an EF24mm 1.4.
I guess, hand-held because of ship vibration.
RF_780 wrote:
I plan on a ~3 week trip through the Northwest passage to Greenland this fall. Clouds permitting I expect to see Aurora and would like to get a few (or even one) good photo. The problem is that I will not be on land at night. I will be on a small cruise ship.
Because the ship is moving/rocking and the long exposure likely required, is it likely to produce a good photo without motion blur? What techniques or equipment can help with this?
My equipment will be a Canon R5 with either the RF15-35mm 2.8L or something rented such as an EF24mm 1.4.
I guess, hand-held because of ship vibration. ...Show more →
If you only want to photograph the show in the skies with wisps and plumes of the Northern Lights, you should be able to do it from your ship and get good results assuming the rocking is gentle enough. After all, there is nothing "sharp" about the splash of Aurora colour. The point source of stars may give rise to streaks but with an ultra wide lens and at small display sizes it should be okay. However, if you want to include features of the landscape, then obviously they will not be sharp when exposed from a rocking boat.
PS: If you have one of the latest models of the iPhone Pro or any equivalent smartphone, they work well if the NL display is strong enough.
PPS: With the R5 you could jack up the ISO to 10,000 even and reduce exposure time. Later you can clean it up with a software tool like DxO's DeepPRIME noise reduction technology.
Thank you for your answer. I've been hesitant to go above about ISO 6400 but will maybe let that go experimentally. I use DXO and results from DCO-prime have been impressive. I was planning on including landscape features on partly moon-lit nights if all went well.
I wonder if one of those hand-held gyro stabilizer rigs would help with the low frequency rocking? Also, it may be possible to stack, aligned multiple short exposures I suppose. Handheld will be tricky though.
or...maybe shoot video and then extract the scenes out, the results are good enough for display on the computer/web/8x10 prints...however if you want large prints..diff story then.
My display will mainly be a 4K "picture frame" and no more than 8x10 prints if I get something usable and sharing online of course. Video was in my plans too so that method will be interesting to try out.
Perhaps a gimbal on top of your tripod could counteract the sway of the ship? Or at least buy a few extra stops of exposure time. The DJI RS3 Mini looks compelling — small, light, and cheap.
Note this is pure speculation and I have no experience with gimbals for "real" cameras, but I recently bought a DJI drone and have been impressed with the gimbal on it — stabilizes really well even for multiple second exposures in windy conditions.
Maybe you did the trip I did in September. Scoresbysund by Poseidon Expeditions. I was all set with tripod, 16-35 F 2.8 lens, 5D Mk IV. And then I learned we would not only be shipbound at night, but under way. I made a number of miscalculations, including trying 2 sec shutter speeds but the rocking of the boat and up and down movement added complications. Those shooting at 1 sec or less, higher ISO had better outcomes. As did the iPhone shooters.
One of the pros, Toby Gelston did a series of about 1000 images at relatively fast shutter speed, presented as a video. Very successfully.
I'll post my efforts in a separate thread. Stay tuned.
Perhaps a gimbal on top of your tripod...
I was thinking about that. I've seen some relatively inexpensive hand-held ones but have no idea of the quality. I think hand-held, not tripod due to ship vibrations though.
Maybe you did the trip I did in September. Scoresbysund by Poseidon Expeditions
Not that one. This one is Northwest Passage to Greenland. The schedule looks like it will have the ship underway at night as well, so that is my concern. It sounds like an F/1.4 lens could help some. Sigma has a 20mm F/1.4 for Canon EF that could be interesting to try.
