Aurora Photography - lessons and learnings

[qwRad]

Thanks for the great guide. Unfortunately it was mostly cloudy last week when I was in Lapland. A few stars were visible on the first two nights but no aurora. But I will be going again in December so will try again then.

[conropl]

Jonathan:

Your camera has menu setting of "Long exp. noise reduction" and "High ISO speed NR". Do you turn these off?

Pat

[Jonathan Huyer]

Jonathan:

Your camera has menu setting of "Long exp. noise reduction" and "High ISO speed NR". Do you turn these off?

Pat

Pat - You will generally want to turn off the long exposure noise reduction, since that will delay the interval time that you can take photos. I believe the noise reduction takes the same length of time as the original shot, so it will affect your time-lapse shots the most. In addition, when the aurora starts to take off you will want to take photos as fast as possible, and having to wait for the noise reduction to do its thing would be frustrating. I believe the High ISO speed NR impacts JPEG files only (please correct me if I'm wrong here). I just leave it on the default setting but I shoot in Raw only, and do my own noise reduction with Lightroom.

[conropl]

...I believe the High ISO speed NR impacts JPEG files only (please correct me if I'm wrong here). I just leave it on the default setting but I shoot in Raw only, and do my own noise reduction with Lightroom.

Thanks for the response. I agree on the first point, and I just leave long exposure NR off. But I was not sure if the high ISO NR effected RAW or just jpeg. I made the assumption it only effected jpeg's so I left it off, and assumed I would take care of it in post (I only shot RAW). Looks like I guessed correctly (I will confirm this to be the case with the manual).

Again, thanks for sharing your knowledge.

Pat

[Jonathan Huyer]

No worries! And again congrats on the successful aurora shot. When you're using the 1DX, it's a bit of a case of "Noise? What noise?"

[conropl]

No worries! And again congrats on the successful aurora shot. When you're using the 1DX, it's a bit of a case of "Noise? What noise?"

Thanks Jonathan. I used a 1DX, but the Aurora was not as intense as yours, so it took 15 seconds, ISO 3200, f/2. So even with the 1DX it was still a bit noisy. It mostly cleaned up, but I am not sure it would be good enough for a large print. I had to update to Lightroom 5 from LR3 to be able to process the files... which left me a little in the dark trying figure out where I needed to set the sliders on LR (the LR5 settings are completely different from LR3), but I will work that out.

Unfortunately, I have to send the 1DX back because there were to many dead pixels (I quit counting at 70). The first shot out of the box showed red, white, and blue dots even at an 8 second exposure. I should be able to swap it out for a new one tomorrow.

I had another question if you do not mind. I also have a 24mm f/1.4L II, but the corners are not good at all. Is that normal? It has a strange distortion in the corners. The stars in the corner of night shots look like they are smeared radially about the center of the sensor... so they look like elongated stars that come to a point at each end (especially in the upper right corner). I am going to see how it looks with a different body, and then decide what to do with the lens.

Other than the dead pixels... what a great camera. I hate to send it back.

Pat

[Poik]

Unfortunately, I have to send the 1DX back because there were to many dead pixels (I quit counting at 70). The first shot out of the box showed red, white, and blue dots even at an 8 second exposure. I should be able to swap it out for a new one tomorrow.

I had the same problem when I bought my 7D, and was REALLY upset about it because I didn't know if I would be able to return it. I did some reading and found that running the manual sensor clean option for a minute or two most times fixes the "dead" pixels. The regular sensor clean didn't fix the issue for me, but when I did the manual sensor clean and let it sit for a couple minutes, then turned it off and back on, my hot pixels were nice and black. Maybe give it a shot on yours.

[Busted Knuckles]

I had another question if you do not mind. I also have a 24mm f/1.4L II, but the corners are not good at all. Is that normal? It has a strange distortion in the corners. The stars in the corner of night shots look like they are smeared radially about the center of the sensor... so they look like elongated stars that come to a point at each end (especially in the upper right corner). I am going to see how it looks with a different body, and then decide what to do with the lens.
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Pat

Would you predict the distortion from the ISO charts? look at the box/lines and the corners of the box might give you a preview of the radial smear.- there is some pretty weak quality wide open a even at 2.0 on the corners. Just my two pennies.

[Kayaker72]

I had another question if you do not mind. I also have a 24mm f/1.4L II, but the corners are not good at all. Is that normal? It has a strange distortion in the corners. The stars in the corner of night shots look like they are smeared radially about the center of the sensor... so they look like elongated stars that come to a point at each end (especially in the upper right corner).

Pat

Are you seeing coma? I've heard it is common on wide angle lenses shot wide open.

[conropl]

I had the same problem when I bought my 7D, and was REALLY upset about it because I didn't know if I would be able to return it. I did some reading and found that running the manual sensor clean option for a minute or two most times fixes the "dead" pixels. The regular sensor clean didn't fix the issue for me, but when I did the manual sensor clean and let it sit for a couple minutes, then turned it off and back on, my hot pixels were nice and black. Maybe give it a shot on yours.

I tried that, and it did nothing. The other problem I have is that there are so bad pixels right out of the box, and by performing the "re-mapping" process, I believe all you are doing is turning them off. I could send it to Canon, and they would map and turn off the offending pixels, or I can swap it out for a new one. I chose the new one because it is easier. You will get dead/hot pixels over time, and I expect it; but I do not want to start with 70-100 coming out of the box and then it only gets worse from there. And sending it to Canon and being without a camera that long did not appeal to me. There was also a drop of oil or water vapor inside the view finder that has since disapeared to somewhere inside the camera.

Would you predict the distortion from the ISO charts? look at the box/lines and the corners of the box might give you a preview of the radial smear.- there is some pretty weak quality wide open a even at 2.0 on the corners. Just my two pennies.

I do not think the 24 looked that bad in the corners on a full frame stopped down one stop in the charts (I will look closer though). I am not sure whether this is a lens issue or a sensor issue. I will be picking up a new camera today after work, and I will find out from there. If it does prove to be a lens issue, then I will have to start investigating it. If it is normal, then I will have to decide if I want to live with it or not. It is really kind of ugly, and would be very noticble if I printed at 16"X24".

Are you seeing coma? I've heard it is common on wide angle lenses shot wide open.

Coma wide open is bad, but once you get to f/2 it cleans up nicely. I assumed I would need to stop down one stop anyway, so I think it looks good as far as coma is concerned provided it is stopped down that one stop.